EXHIBITIONS
Good As Gold
Telly Tuita
27 Feb - 2 May, 2026
Summary
Coining the term Tongpop to describe his rich yet complex relationship to his ancestral home of Tonga, alongside his lived experiences across Australia and Aotearoa, Telly Tuita’s practice spans performative self-portraiture. Through sustained experimentation across photography, video, painting, sculpture, and installation, Tuita examines his own life story, navigating ideas of belonging, colonisation, and cultural hybridity.
Tuita draws on the multifaceted nature of his experiences to champion the possibility of multiple, shifting versions of oneself. Employing familiar, and at times nostalgic, references and materials - including pop culture, religious iconography, motifs, colours, textures, and light - these works subvert fixed ideas of identity, making connections across time and space.
Those who encounter the works are invited to move, gather, and position themselves in relation to them, to Tuita, his stories, and to one another, reflecting the ways identity is formed through context, proximity, and exchange.
Good As Gold frames Tuita’s broader enquiry into how worth is assigned, inherited, re-negotiated, and reimagined through language, memory, and lived experience with the presentation of old and new works.
Telly Tuita
Tuita has exhibited widely across Australia, New Zealand and internationally. He exhibited his first major solo show 'Tongpop’s Great Expectations' at Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW in 2024. Tuita has showcased at the Tauranga Art Gallery, 2021 and the Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki, 2022. Tuita was selected as Sydney Festival's Visual Artist in Residence in 2025 where the artist transformed the iconic Thirsty Mile precinct with the work 'Tā and Vā of Tongpop', highlighting his vibrant Tongpop designs.
He has also shown at key international events including the Aotearoa Art Fair and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale for the Australian Premiere in 2022.
Image credit: Donna Vo
Past Exhibitions
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2025 Faleship Residency Exhibition
Quishile Charan, Harry Freeth, and p.Walters
10 Oct - 6 Dec 2025
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before we learn to talanoa
Lily Aitui Laita and Ululau Ama
8 Aug - 20 Sep, 2025
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Borne and Bred
Linda Va’aelua
9 May - 5 Jul 2025
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Selau Pasege
George Funaki, Jasmine Tuiā, Jimmy Ma’ia’i
14 Feb - 5 Apr 2025
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A Seat at the Table
Teuila Fatupaito, Latamai Katoa, Sisi Panikoula, Brett Taefu, and Daedae Tekoronga-Waka.
Dec 5 – Dec 20 2024
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Solesolevaki
Solesolevaki, initiated by artist-curator Vasemaca Tavola, explores the concept of solesolevaki as a tool to enable connection and intergenerational cultural transmission, across four generations of one family. Featuring works by Lanuola Mereia Aniseko, Ella Carling, Tiana Carling, Mereia Carling, Mereia Sauvukivuki, Helen Tavola, Kaliopate Tavola and Vasemaca Tavola. Exhibition design by Christian Carling.
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When it Feels Over
Christopher Ulutupu
TAUTAI Pacific Arts Trust, in collaboration with CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image, is pleased to present Leave room for Jesus... (2023) and The Pleasures of Unbelonging (2023) moving image work by Christopher Ulutupu.
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Grasping the Horizon
Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss
In this exhibition Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss’ connection to the black lines of her ancestors are opened wider with a range of new patterns and new hiapo compositions.
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Good Hair Day
Good Hair Day curated by Luisa Tora explores urban narratives around hair. Featuring artists Bali Buliruarua, Māia Piata Rose Week, Nââwié Tutugoro, Karlin Morrison Raju and Peter Seeto Wing.
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Titiro ki muri, kia whakatika ā mua | Look to the past to proceed to the future
Coinciding with the Hōteke (winter) holidays, this programme has been organised by Hana Pera Aoake and Tautai Pacific Arts Trust.
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Queen Fiapoto: switch, code, reverse
Queen Fiapoto: switch, code, reverse is an exercise of agency by 5 young Samoan women. The multidisciplinary project is presented by the sugaz of Malae/Co.
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The Last Kai
The Last Kai exhibition cleverly uses familiar religious iconography from within Pacific homes to bring up current discussions around women’s representation and the role of Christianity in the modern Pacific household.
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683 Baby xo
683 Baby xo examines the complexities of being New Zealand-born Niueans, craving that connection to their Niuean heritage while acknowledging their perspective as diaspora youth. Featuring work by Dahlina Taueu, Quentin Tauetau-Tohitau and Kordell Cameron.
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Taputapu Ātea
Taputapu Ātea is an installation of new paintings and digital works that explore the artificially intelligent future of our culture’s materialisation.
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Haus of Memories
Haus of Memories is a multidisciplinary residency project led by Studio Kiin that explores and gathers fragments of how we archive and draw upon memory to honour our future past.
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lean into the pain: archive of a tatau thesis
Award-winning producer and sound artist Anonymouz presents a deeply personal multimedia exhibition that explores his thesis on the Indigenous practice of tatau being an analogue metaphor, philosophy and framework for lived experience.
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The Water Tastes Different Here
In*ter*is*land Collective, a misfit collection of queer, moana artists and activists based in London, UK and in Aoteraoa New Zealand, present their first exhibition in Aotearoa at Tautai Gallery.
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Toitū Te Moana
Hawaiki, the ancestral homeland, is the beginning point for Toitū Te Moana, and the place from which the artists’ mātauranga, their knowledge, descends.
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Oh My Ocean
Curated by Nigel Borrell, this exhibition includes work by Rawiri Brown, Fa’amele Etuale, Ioane Ioane, Elisabeth Kumaran, Sani Muliaumaseali’i, Michel Mulipola, Iata Peautolu, Keva Rands and Chris Van Doren.
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Moana Waiwai Moana Pāti
Moana Waiwai Moana Pāti celebrates the diversity of Pacific creatives, and includes film, digital image-making, painting, tatau, poetic prose, sonic landscapes and performance.
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Voyagers: The Niu World
Combining pieces created during Aotearoa’s lockdown and new work, this exhibition aims to tap into the spirit of the great explorers of the Pacific, consulting the stars and charting a course into the wild blue expanse.
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Saltwater / INTERCONNECTIVITY
Tautai Gallery is transformed to embody the Moana / Solwara worldview
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Moana Wall
The 70m hoardings were transformed into the MOANA WALL using the existing infrastructure as a canvas that highlights contemporary Pasifika artists and celebrates the diverse community of Karangahape Road.
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Moana Legacy
Tautai’s first exhibition in its new gallery space, the show was developed from an existing partnership with Blak Dot Gallery, Naarm (Melbourne) featuring Tagata Moana artists working in both Aotearoa and Australia.
