Tanu Gago

Tanu Gago is a Samoan interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and curator based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is also co-founder of arts collective FAFSWAG. He is best known for his work that explores intersections of Pacific queer and gender identities, as well as themes of cultural heritage and colonization. Gago's work has been shown in various exhibitions and festivals both nationally and internationally, including the Auckland Arts Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and the Venice Biennale. Throughout his career, Gago has received numerous awards and grants, including the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Award in 2017 and the Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2020. He received a New Zealand Queens Birthday honour in 2019 for services to art and the LGBTIQ+ community.

Biography Gago was born in 1983 in Samoa, migrated to New Zealand in 1984 and grew up in Manukau City, Auckland, New Zealand. He spent most of his childhood on the beach, riding his bicycle through the village, and making tapa cloth with his aunt. He attended different schools, including Saint Joseph's Boys in Apia, Samoa, De La Salle College in South Auckland, Apifo'ou in Tongatapu, and Māngere College in New Zealand. He has a Bachelor of Arts in performing arts with a major in writing and directing for screen from Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland. The exhibition was a synchronised, panoramic, three-channel video installation that explored masculinity from Gago's own cultural experience, sometimes built upon the individual experiences of other Pacific men he photographed or featured in his films.

A photographic exhibition of Gago's called Avanoa o Tama (2012) had as the subject Polynesian men and explored notions of gender and sexuality. He utilizes Moving Image, Photography, and documentary as ideological agents of power and control.

FAFSWAG is a collective that pioneer Ballroom culture in New Zealand, and exhibit around the world including Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, Rotterdam International Film Festival and ImagineNATIVE, Toronto, Canada. FAFSWAG represented New Zealand at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney. FAFSWAG began in 2013, by Tanu Gago and Pati Solomona Tyrell. Following Tanu's successful solo exhibition Avanoa O Tama, which brought together individuals from South Auckland to participate in staged images that Tanu directed and produced.

In 2019, Gago presented an exhibition titled "Savage In the Garden" at The Physics Room in Christchurch, featuring a series of images and audio recordings that explore queerness as a site for exploration and open social discussion. The exhibition was developed during Gago's time as the Pacific Artist in residence at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury. Gago's work challenges how Pacific women are represented in the media and advertising images, aiming to move away from cultural stereotypes. He hopes that his work will create a point of reference for future generations and reflection of the politics of identity, body and gender, all through disruption.

In 2014, Gago received the Auckland Festival of Photography Annual Commission.

His artistic practice is:the intersections of film, digital arts, animation, and interactive technologies, with an interest in building restorative narratives of queer Indigenous Moana experiences. (McCahon House Trust)In 2018 Gago was the artist in residence at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.

Awards In 2019, Gago was awarded a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to art and the LGBTIQ+ community.

In 2020, he received the Contemporary Pacific Artist award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards.