Ema Tavola

Ema Tavola (born 1982) is a Fijian-born New Zealand artist, curator, arts manager and advocate using art to centralise 'Pacific ways of seeing'.

Early life and family Tavola was born in Fiji. Her father is from Dravuni in the Kadavu province of Fiji. Her mother is a third generation Pākehā from Palmerston North in New Zealand. In 2013 it re-opened after expansion.

Artistic career Tavola has speaking engagements at conferences and other places. In 2019 she was a guest speaker at Para Site International Conference, Hong Kong, the Singapore Art Book Fair for NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore) and Spinning Triangles: Ignition of a School of Design for SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin, Germany / Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo).

In 2019 Tavola opened an independent art gallery called Vunilagi Vou, the gallery closed in 2023.

Tavola's artworks are held in Auckland Art Gallery.

Curatorial work

2016 – Dravuni: Sivia yani na Vunilagi – Beyond the Horizon - New Zealand Maritime Museum 2017 – Kaitani – The Physics Room (New Zealand) 2018 – A Maternal Lens – 4th International Biennial of Casablanca (Morocco) 2018 – Dravuni: Sivia yani na Vunilagi – Beyond the Horizon - Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific (Fiji)

Awards and residencies 2017 – Pacific Studies Artist in Residence – University of Canterbury Macmillan Brown Centre