INTERNATIONAL RESIDENCY

We are pleased to announce our 2025 Tautai International Residency programme, where we host Los Angeles based artist Maria Maea this November.

Maria is a Mexican-Samoan artist who brings a unique perspective that bridges Latinx and Pacific worlds—two communities with rich cultural lineages shaped by migration, resilience, and deep familial ties. Her work resonates with Pacific communities in Aotearoa, where questions of ancestry, belonging, and cultural survival are central to many artists and families living across vast oceanic and diasporic networks. 

Elements in Maea’s practice—particularly her engagement with ritual, spiritual symbolism, and urban materiality—find powerful echoes in the ways Pacific artists in Aotearoa navigate hybridity and place. Her blending of Samoan heritage, familial collaboration, and practices such as weaving and costume-making creates strong affinities with Māori and Pacific makers who honour intergenerational knowledge through collective creativity. 

In this context, Maea’s presence would offer a meaningful contribution to the ongoing conversation about indigeneity, memory, and transformation across the Moana and beyond. She would undoubtedly relish the opportunity to work in Aotearoa—strengthening ties with local communities, exchanging knowledge with other Indigenous and diasporic artists, and weaving her ancestral threads into the cultural fabric of this place. 

On the Whims of a Butterfly (Chrysalis), 2025 

ARTIST TALK WITH MARIA MAEA

Thurs 20 Nov, 6pm 

Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust 

L1, 300 Karangahape Rd