Held Across the Pacific       

This assemblage brings together portraiture, dress, adornment, and vessel as a shared language of diasporic continuity. Telly Tuita’s digital print Diaspora’s Children: Seated yellow figure with illi (fan) rests against a handwoven jumpsuit by Guatemalan designer Victoria Rivera, situating the body as both archive and surface. Layered on top are adornments by Los Colores de la Tierra (Guatemala), a hand-embroidered bag from Panchimalco, El Salvador and a turquoise ring from the Santa Fe Indian Market in the US, extending the portrait into lived material relations. Nearby, a tecomate/hue placed on a plinth carries shell, harakeke fibre, and a carved pounamu element by Arawhetu Bardinner, drawing a quiet line across the Pacific. Recognisable across regions, the tecomate/hue functions here as a vessel of memory, holding colour, movement, and Indigenous presence together without hierarchy or enclosure.