VĀRUA: Imagining a Queer Pacific Screen

VĀRUA: Imagining a Queer Pacific screen is a programme featuring a screening of three moving image works by Sue Pearson and Pauline Reynolds, Latamai Katoa, and Samson Dell, followed by a conversation with artists Iz Randell, Latamai Katoa, and Samson Dell, moderated by Mauatua Fa’ara-Reynolds. Together, they will respond to the works and discuss the reparative capacity of moving image for queer Indigenous Pacific artists.

VĀRUA: Imagining a Queer Pacific screen is the concluding event forTHE UNDERWORLD, a pop-up installation by Latamai Katoa which relishes the sensuality of being seen whilst interrogating the very act of watching. Shown at CIRCUIT from 12-5pm 20-21 August, the installation is set in the artist’s backyard at night where they perform sensual gestures through shifting screens and frosted windows. Sitting somewhere between the tender, theatrical, and quietly confrontational, THE UNDERWORLD negotiates the descent from private ritual to public performance. Ultimately, Katoa’s work negotiates the visibility of their body, encouraging us to consider: should we be watching this?

VĀRUA: Imagining a Queer Pacific screen is curated by CIRCUIT’s Mana Moana Resident Mauatua Fa’ara-Reynolds.

The Mana Moana Residency is a 3 month placement at CIRCUIT supported by Creative New Zealand. The residency supports an emerging Pasifika writer/curator to develop a body of work that increases the visibility of Pasifika artists working in the moving image. CIRCUIT’s 2026 resident is Mauatua Fa’ara-Reynolds, a Mā’ohi-Norf’k writer and tapa-maker based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. In 2025 they completed their MA in Creative Writing at the IIML, where they received the Letteri Family Prize for Creative Non-Fiction.

VĀRUA: Imagining a Queer Pacific screen is presented alongside Mauatua’s accompanying essay series on circuit.org.nz, A huri i tō mata i te pō which considers how Pacific artists are reclaiming the screen to heal from colonial legacies and forge their own legacies. Read the first essay here.