On this lovely day, we decided to head to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, specifically to check out the Entangled Islands: Samoa, New Zealand and the First World War exhibition.
Curated by Gail Romano and Kolokesa U. Māhina-Tuai, content specialist Associate Professor Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa and the museum team have created a fascinating, stimulating and educational exhibition.
Writing about the multiple perspectives outlined here in the museum exhibition developer Janneen Love’s article, Entangling Islands is also interesting in terms of it’s gallery location and the navigation of the exhibition, behaving like a voyage and acting as a thoroughfare to other corridors and the unique mix of visitors over our two hour visit.
Given Auckland’s status as the world’s largest Polynesian city, the premiere of the show here makes sense. We loved reading about Samoan soldiers fighting for Germany, watching where Professor Maualaivao Albert Wendt’s surname came from and marvelling to a centenarian’s tale, Mele Vaele Toelu of the infamous 1918 flu pandemic burials in her village, particularly that of her own father. It’s also very heartening to see the billingual approach used here, with wonderful translations by Muliagatele Vavao Fetui.
Our camera needs a new battery so we thought we would use the wonders of Mac Photo Booth and place the German Post Office flag feedback postcard into the “Tropical Island” effect, entirely fitting for this show.
Head to it before it closes on the 15 March.
Okay, that is aages away but we are dealing with island time, ua iloa?!
