Huni Mancini
“We Carry Their Voices”
Huni Mancini’s video We Carry Their Voices documents the Archive of Maori and Pacific Sound where she currently works in Aotearoa. The AMPS archive is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year but celebrations were postponed due to COVID-19. Filmed on an iPhone Mancini documents the final days of working with the archive before it moves, speaking to her experience of transcribing the Tongan Collection alongside her mother and layers music from the archive to express the multiplicity of voices held in the archive. Her work considers how we access and activate knowledge voiced by our ancestors and the importance of respecting the archive as a tapu (sacred) space.
Read the transcript for the video here.
Huni Mancini (she/her) is a writer and archivist born in Los Angeles and based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice centres on memory, embodiment and modes of archiving in the diaspora. She is currently working at the Archive of Māori and Pacific Sound as Cultural Collections Assistant – Pasifika. Her heritage is Tongan (Mu’a, Tongatapu; Hihifo, Niuatoputapu) and Italian (Grillara; Monti, Venezia).