Two Tongan artists win Arts Pasifika Awards 2005 [1]
Monday, November 7, 2005 - 11:20. Updated on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - 14:02.
Tongans, Mafi Malanga XIII (Mr ‘Ilati Taungakava) and Maui ‘Ofamo‘oni, were two of the six Pacific artists across a range of art forms, who were honoured at the Arts Pasifika Awards 2005, held in Christchurch, New Zealand, on November 2.
Master artist Mafi Malanga XIII received the $5,000 Pacific Arts Award for his contribution to Tongan traditional arts for the quality of his work in teaching young Tongans the rhythm, symmetry, harmony and beauty of their performing arts. His contribution has been both in secondary schools and the wider Tongan community, where his active involvements have been noticeably recognised.
Apart from being a punake, master artist, Mafi Malanga XIII is also a matapule, master orator. He received strict training in both art forms from his father Mafi Malanga XIII (Mr ...Etuate Taungakava), who was also punake and matapule.
He left for New Zealand in 1974, and has continued to be active in the artistic and ceremonial affairs of the Tongan community. Since 1991, he has led the Mt Roskill Grammar and other secondary schools to many successes at the ASB bank Performing Arts Festival in Auckland.
Visual arts
A tufunga tatongitongi, sculptor, Maui ‘Ofamo'oni received the $3,000 Salamander Gallery Award for Emerging Pacific Visual Artists. He was a member of the design team, made up of architects, artists and landscape architects, who designed the new Visitors Centre at the Auckland Regional Botanic Gardens, which won the Built Environment category of the 2005 Creative Places Awards.
Maui, who was born in New Zealand in 1974, has a bachelor of Fine Arts and a Diploma of Secondary Teaching, and is currently studying for a Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Auckland.
The other four winners were the musician and founder of the well-known Te Vaka band, Opetaia Foa‘i (Tokelauan) for the $7,000 Senior Pacific Artists... Awards; multi-media artist, John Ioane (Samoan) for $5,000 Pacific Innovation and Excellence Award; opera singer, Ramonda Te Maiharoa-Taleni (Samoan) for the $3,000 Iosefa Enari Memorial Award; and writer, Miria George (Cook Islander), for the $3,000 Emerging Pacific Artists' Award.
In 2003, the internationally renowned Tongan-born, New Zealand-based tufunga lalava artist, Filipe Tohi, was the first Tongan to win the Pacific Innovation and Excellence Award, in recognition of his creative and original development of the Tongan customary artform of lalava into new contemporary forms.
Another Tongan, Kepueli Vaomotou, tufunga tamaka artist, won the inaugural Pacific Heritage Arts Award in 2004, in respect of his creative and original translation of this traditional art into other artforms such as tufunga langafale, house-building, and tufunga langa‘a, fence-building, amidst others.
Members of the Tongan community in Christchurch attended in support of both Mafi Malanga XIII and Maui, together with members of their families and friends. Also present was Dr ‘Okusitino Mahina, who, along with Dr Linita Manu...atu, was a nominator of these successful Tongan artists.