Pacific Identity through Space and Time in Lily Laita's Va i Ta

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2009

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Honolulu: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

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Abstract

This essay considers Lily Laita’s exploration of Pacific identity through space and time iin her large-scale, four-part painting Va i Ta Taeao Lalata E Aunoa Ma Gagana, created in 2000. Va i Ta constitutes a visual representation of Pacific identity and how it relates to notions of the vā (space between). The Samoan concept of vā evokes an ever-shifting and productive paradigm that eschews linear or static understandings of space and time. Indeed, the vā represents a dynamic moment that contains the present, past, and future. This “in-between” space bursts with potential and creativity. In Va i Ta Taeao Lalata E Aunoa Ma Gagana, Laita follows the creative impulse to work in a space without time or tense. The result is a timeless painting that illustrates Pacific identity as it is linked to the space-time continuum of the vā.

Description

Paper submitted to The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific; based on the indigenous Oceanic concept, va, a space marked by tension and transformation and by confluences and connections

Keywords

Lily Laita, space (vā), time, identity, narrative, Aotearoa/New Zealand, contemporary Pacific art

Citation

Webb-Binder, B. 2009. Pacific Identity through Space and Time in Lily Laita's Va i Ta. In The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific, edited by A. Marata Tamaira, 25-34. Occasional Paper Series 44. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

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10 p.

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