Artist Talk: Stella Mata’uiau

Stella Mata’uiau is a Magandjin multimodal artist, undergoing a sculpture major at the Queensland College of Art. To her, the work she creates is a process of healing as well as an act of rebellion against cultural assimilation.

The following are excerpts taken from a short documentary we filmed with Stella in 2023.

EXCERPTS FROM OUR SHORT DOCUMENTARY WITH STELLA

HER EXPERIENCES AS A PASIFIKA ARTIST IN ART SCHOOL

Stella:
Specifically being at Art School, [there’s] not many islanders at all. I think there might be one, possibly. Um, and I have kind of, you know, from being so othered and I look around at my classmates and I look at their features, the color of their skin. You know, it’s so different to mine and I just feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I get really in my head and I feel like everyone stares at me and is like, well, what? Like, you know, what the hell is she doing here?
[But] I’ve kind of been able to turn that into a strength of mine, you know, to use my cultural background as my artistic practice and to be the other, be different.
That’s what a lot of my previous artworks were about is being the other...it’s taken a lot, a big toll on me, on my identity, you know, cause I’m not a traditional Samoan woman, like I wasn’t Samoan pretty much, I was just another Australian just happened to look brown.

TALKING ABOUT HER ART PRACTICE AND CURRENT EXPLORATIONS

Stella:
I’ve been looking at what our religion was before [pre-Christianity] and [what] I grew up being told. Like some old creation stories...they were just told as like legends and myths and you know, I think they did happen.
My most recent work is a shrine dedicated to pretty much the Samoan version of Christianity’s God. He’s referred to as Tagaloa.
The creation story is absolutely huge. There’s, you know, so many different aspects and I was talking to my auntie who has all of this knowledge and she said, you know, I can’t tell it to you in one day.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ABLE TO RECONNECT BACK TO HER CULTURE

Stella:
[It’s] just doing myself that justice of being able to reconnect back to my ancestors and it’s been really healing and I think now it’s the most important time as... you don’t want it to be too late.
I feel like I’m definitely able to reclaim my identity, my heritage, my culture, [and] learning about all these things that were deliberately wiped away...[like] our religions, just our way of living and our creation stories. I can’t explain the feeling of like this feeling of immense proudness like yeah, I’m Samoan.
It just makes me excited being able to explore this part of myself and my parents’ identity, my grandparents, my ancestors. It’s really quite powerful.

Connect with Stella at
@stellamaimoana / @ma1moana