Vasemaca Tavola
Vasemaca Tavola
Vasemaca (FKA Ema) Tavola is a Fijian-Pākehā artist-curator based in South Auckland, Aotearoa. Her practice is aligned with the politics of decolonisation and Indigenous feminisms, motherhood, and histories of BIPOC art and activism in the Global South.
Vasemaca established her painting practice in Suva, Fiji, before relocating to South Auckland, where she studied sculpture and arts management. She is currently undertaking postgraduate research in applied Indigenous knowledge. Since 2004, she has produced curatorial projects for galleries and museums throughout Aotearoa and contributed to the curatorium of the 4th International Biennial of Casablanca in 2018.
A frequent speaker on Indigenous curatorial practice, Vasemaca founded Vunilagi Vou in 2019, a shapeshifting gallery, creative studio, and consultancy that advocates for creative practice as a tool for connection, healing, and decolonisation.
Project Summary
Curator – Epeli Hau‘ofa Gallery Exhibition | Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies | Suva, Fiji
In October 2026, Vasemaca Tavola will curate a major site-specific exhibition at the Epeli Hau‘ofa Gallery at the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies (OCACPS), University of the South Pacific, Suva. Developed in partnership with her father, Kaliopate Tavola, the exhibition will mark his 80th birthday while continuing a collaborative relationship that began in 2010.
Emerging from conversations sparked by Tavola’s postgraduate research into an iTaukei framework for curatorial practice, the project will explore the history of Fiji, and particularly Suva, through the lifespan of her father. Bringing together objects, ephemera, archival material, and artworks, the exhibition will consider history through the lives of people, the objects they hold, and their connections to place.
Drawing on the aesthetic of the curiosity cabinet or wonder-room, the exhibition will challenge conventional gallery models by bringing storytelling, creative making, and cultural transmission directly into the exhibition space. Developed in partnership with Suva-based poet and creative entrepreneur Peter Sipeli, the project will be accompanied by an extensive public programme designed to activate the gallery as a space for participation, exchange, and Indigenous ways of knowing.