Tongan-born, Canberra-raised, Tāmaki Makaurau-based, Sione Monū works in video, performance, photography, fashion and adornment. Often using a cell phone, they produce works concerned with identity, gender and Tongan life. Monū’s prolific output in video is a mix of observation, improvisation and sampling. Expanding the selfie to a self-filming technique, they reveal Pasifika queer culture and aspects of modern Tongan family life.

This video work was commissioned especially for the exhibition Te Wheke. It is Monū’s response to the curatorial brief to conside migrations from Polynesia and the rest of the world to Aotearoa, from Aotearoa to Polynesia, and back out to the wider world again.

(Te Wheke, 2020)