Project Summary

Tuvalu Arts Festival | Funafuti, Tuvalu

In 2026, Molia Alama-Tulafono will participate in the inaugural Tuvalu Arts Festival in Funafuti, Tuvalu, a significant cultural gathering bringing together Tuvaluan artists, cultural practitioners, and members of the diaspora to celebrate and advance Tuvalu’s artistic identity.

As part of the festival, Alama-Tulafono will present Pokisi – Te Fatu Manava, a contemporary multimedia activation grounded in Tuvaluan cultural practice. Reimagining the pokisi, the central instrument of the fatele (Tuvalu traditional dance), the project transforms the drum box into an immersive and interactive artwork carrying sound, story, environment, and collective memory.

Returning to Funafuti will connect the project directly to its cultural and environmental origins, creating opportunities to engage with community knowledge, lived experience, and ancestral storytelling. Developed within Tuvalu itself, the work expands the pokisi as a living and responsive medium while exploring the relationship between cultural continuity, contemporary expression, and climate realities.

Positioning her practice within both Pacific and global conversations, the opportunity will support connection, collaboration, and dialogue while strengthening the future development of Pokisi – Te Fatu Manava through creation grounded in place, community, and cultural truth.