INTERIM CHAIR

John is a Litigation Director at Thomas and Co Lawyers, specializing in Litigation and Relationship Property matter. As well as board member for Tautai, he is on the executive committee of the Pacific Lawyers Association.

BOARD MEMBER

Lonnie is a leading Pacific multi-media and installation artist whose work comments on indigeneity in the contemporary world. Along with numerous large scale public commissions, her work is held in significant public and private collections throughout Aotearoa and abroad. In 2015, Lonnie was awarded the Creative New Zealand Pasifika Contemporary Artist Award.

BOARD MEMBER

Born in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Jessica traces her ancestry to Niue/Nukututaha in Te Moananui a Kiwa and Aberdeen, Scotland. She has an MA in Art History from Auckland University where she focused on contemporary Maori and Pasifika art.

Currently, she is the Kaiwhakahaere/GM for the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi and she is also one of the founders of In*ter*is*land Collective; a misfit collection of tagata Moana aunties, activists, and artists based both in London, UK, and Aotearoa.

BOARD MEMBER

Kirsty has worked in education, exhibitions and public programmes roles in galleries and museums around Aotearoa, including Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Toi o Tamaki, Te Whare Toi, Toitū and has returned home to Ōtautahi to Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Kirsty has also worked in the Arts team at Auckland City Council and recently in the Ara Toi team at Dunedin City Council.

Image taken by John Collie, photographer at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.

BOARD MEMBER

Leon Tan (PhD) is a creative practitioner, educator and psychotherapist whose research focusses on cultural expression and the public realm. Co-Editor-in-Chief of Public Art Dialogue (Taylor & Francis, USA) and Associate Professor of Design and Contemporary Arts at Unitec Te Pūkenga, Leon published The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm in 2020 and has presented public and participatory projects in venues including Momentum the Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art (2017) and the Taipei Biennial (2012).

BOARD MEMBER

William is a sixth generation resident of Aotearoa, a qualified lawyer and accountant, and a retired partner of PWC. William has had a long involvement in the visual arts and governance and has worked as a litigator and in the film industry. He was one of the founders of Artspace and a board member of the New Zealand Film Commission, Objectspace and other trusts.

He has a deep interest in the Pacific and was a long term board member of The Melanesian Trust. His governance experience includes chairing the Auckland City Mission and Artspace.

BOARD MEMBER

Leone Samu Tui (Lefaga, Malie, Pu'apu'a, Sapunaoa, Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa) recently took up the inaugural position of Pou Hītori Me Te Rangahau Moanui-A-Kiwa Pacific Historian-Researcher at Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Prior to this, she spent sixteen years at Auckland Museum in the Documentary Heritage and Human History Departments, eventually serving as Associate Curator, Documentary Heritage (Pacific Collections) from 2020 to 2023. A postgraduate of Pacific Studies from the University of Auckland, Leone uses Pacific research methodologies across academic research and professional spaces. Leone is also a member of the fledgling Friends of Maota Samoa community group which aims to promote and preserve this built heritage measina on Karangahape Road. Leone resides in Papakura, Tāmaki Makaurau with her husband and two children.