The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

of making and assembling is not communal; neither does she need an audience to physically interact with her constructions to give them meaning. Langford’s is a highly personal vision, created through a particular way of working: I use techniques which have been described in architecture as ‘simultaneous strengthening’ where the structures are assessed and strengthened as needed while the construction is in process . . . This kind of construction is akin to ‘spontaneous architecture’. 9 The exploration of form here is organic and responsive, reliant on Langford’s memory and knowledge of materials, such as galvanised wire, barbecue skewers and plastics. Most often, she calls on her impulsiveness, allowing for a renewed approach each time. Crawl space 2012, the title of her work for APT7, is curiously suggestive of an enclosed, restricted space, contrary to the loftiness and ethereal descriptors usually associated with her practice. With this work, Langford is interested in addressing ‘the politics of construction material, the use of resources and the implications of major construction’. 10 Evocatively, crawl spaces are a type of basement that allow access to pipes and substructures, essentially the foundations of a building. In the Pacific, a structure’s foundation — physical or metaphorical — is linked to a very different idea of space and the concept of vā . Many scholars, including Hufanga ‘Okusitino Māhina, Tevita O Ka’ili and Karlo Mila- Schaaf, have explored the notion of vā . Albert Refiti alludes to this complex idea: The vā is a spatial ordering concept that exists between things and administers a code of good (ideal) behaviour, an invisible language that enables space and things to be configured in a positive manner. It governed traditional aesthetic appreciation in Samoa, Tonga, Niue, the Cook Islands and Aotearoa from oratory to boat-building, tattooing to the fabrication of buildings and space. 11 Tusi Tamasese’s beautifully nuanced film O le tulafale ( The Orator ) 2011 illustrates this system of spatial reference. 12 Shot entirely in Samoa, Tamasese uses minimal dialogue and rich metaphorical imagery to recount a man’s attempt to enter strict Samoan social hierarchies. The safest place for the character of Saili is within his own dwelling or the communal faletalimalo , the chief’s house or guesthouse. Whenever he steps outside these structures he is overcome, either by natural elements (nearly drowning while digging his wife’s grave) or by the worst aspects of human nature (he is jeered and stoned at his parent’s shrine and outside the grocery store). From afar, Saili enviously watches the matai (chiefs) sitting at their meetings. He can join only by proving his eloquence, and this must be done standing alone outside the faletalimalo . Having endured the uncertainty of the open liminal space, Saili can finally merit his position within the faletalimalo alongside the matai . There is a similarity in the allocation of space within both Tongan and Samoan meeting houses. Chiefs have designated positions from which to listen or speak according to the vā and to the relationships within their village. In Tonga, these positions are visually reinforced by the patterns of the lalava (lashing using sennit) at which each chief sits. As the academic Karen Stevenson relates: ‘These provided visual relationships between the past and the present offering mnemonic devices to remember histories’. 13 Filipe Tohi was recently bestowed the title of ‘Sopolemalama’, or ‘bringer of light’, by the Samoan Head of State Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi for lashing a customary fale (house) using patterns conveying Samoa and Tonga’s joined histories. 14 For Tohi, lalava divides space, creating a grid, a net. Historically, in the absence of nails, it was lalava that bound objects, seafaring vessels and houses (as it still does for the Pentecost gol ). Tohi contends that the lalava patterns also tell the structures’ stories — the patterns’ angles and shapes — that is, if you know how to look, and how to interpret that specific use of space. Tohi spent well over a decade researching and experimenting with lalava . Beginning with the re-lashing of a museum canoe, he has since transposed lalava patterns to paper, wool, wood and steel. Each of the ten small wooden sculptures in APT7 present a particular dimension of a lalava pattern, physically demonstrating how the layers and string intersect, and how negative and positive space is used. So transformed, the lalava occasionally becomes a personal narrative, like the beautiful composition Vakakilangi 2003–12, which depicts a canoe journeying across triangular-shaped waves up to the heavens. OPPOSITE (LEFT) SOPOLEMALAMA FILIPE TOHI Tonga/New Zealand b.1959 Vakakilangi (from Maquettes 2003–12) Balsa wood, PVA glue / 76 x 20 x 13cm / Courtesy: The artist / Photograph: Sam Hartnett OPPOSTE (RIGHT) JOANNA LANGFORD New Zealand b.1978 down from the nightlands (installation view) (detail) 2007 Courtesy: The Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare O Rehua, Whanganui / Photograph: Richard Wotton 42