Vā Kōrero: Marques Hanalei Marzan & Tokainiua Devatine

In June, we were excited to host visiting researchers, Marques Hanalei Marzan (Hawaiʻi) and Tokainiua Devatine (Tahiti) for a Vā Kōrero.

Marques Hanalei Marzan, The Wayne Pitluck & Judith Pyle Curator for Cultural Resilience, Bishop Museum

Marques Hanalei Marzan is a Hawaiian and Oceanic fibre culture bearer and contemporary visual artist born and raised in Kāneʻohe, Hawaiʻi. He has degrees from the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa in fibre art and the George Washington University in Museum Studies. As the Cultural Advisor at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Marques promotes the integration of indigenous mindsets and practices within the Museum field. He assists cultural practitioners and the community with engaging ancestors and their creative expressions at the Museum and recognizes the need to legitimize indigenous voices. Marques shares his understanding and passion for the fibre arts through public engagements and continues to encourage and excite new conversations and viewpoints. Marques bridges the innovations of the past with those of the present, creating dialogues within his work and community engagement that speak to the vibrancy and dynamism of culture.

Tokainiua Devatine, Professor at the Centre des Métiers d’Art de la Polynésie française, Tahiti

Professor Tokainiua Devatine is a visual artist with degrees in anthropology and history from the Université Paris X - Nanterre. Tokainiua has Tahitian ancestry with ancestral ties to Rotuma and several European countries. His teaching is based on the sharing of knowledge on Oceanian heritage, tangible and intangible, cultural and natural, with young people in order to enlighten their present times and make them realize the wider world so as to build a response to challenges that globalization reveals. His academic engagement is focused on Oceanian consciousness and the expressions of local culture initiatives. This allows him to contribute to the elaboration of a more balanced discourse on the Tahitian world understanding, past and present. His previous and current research has led him to explore concepts in Tahitian dance, literature, traditional festivals and visual art. Tokainiua is an Associate Investigator to the Vā Moana Research Cluster Marsden Funded research on Artefacts of Relations.

Vā Kōrero operates as a quarterly platform to support the research and practice of cluster members and our extended network. Affiliates, candidates, and wider whānau are invited to share in ceremony, food, and presentations of research; to engage with and seek support/mentorship from knowledge holders, senior academics, and artists alike.