“Lomiga Lua: i Luga ‘o le Moana”
Leitu Bonnici
27 May → 8 July 2023
In Leitu Bonnici's West Space Window Lomiga Lua: i Luga ‘o le Moana, language, imagery and colour are employed to explore the link between ‘āiga across waters and geographies despite physical distance from each other, and from Sāmoa.
Lomiga Lua: i Luga ‘o le Moana features text formed through connection, memory and shared interactions by ‘āiga in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), on Kombumerri Country (Gold Coast) and in Kirikiriroa (Hamilton).
The word ‘sami’ is used to describe the sea or ocean in gagana Sāmoa, but the word ‘moana’ can also be used and is shared as the word for ocean across multiple island nations of Moana Oceania. It can also mean the colour blue in gagana Sāmoa, as in ‘lanumoana’. On the internet, blue is the default colour used to denote connection to other destinations in the form of hyperlinks.
Taking both this text and colour as a starting point, Leitu then digitally constructed interpretations of the ocean that use a mixture of illustration, code, three-dimensional digital modelling and footage taken in Sāmoa.
Developed in collaboration with Alitasi Fatu, Denise Roberts, Moira Roberts and Numiamalepule Adrian Tuitama. The West Space Window is supported by City of Yarra through their Annual Arts Grants Program.
Leitu Bonnici is a graphic designer, filmmaker and artist of Sāmoan, Italian, Maltese, Irish, English and Swedish ancestry (among others). Through a wide range of methods, her work seeks to examine and disrupt the entrenched frameworks that dictate the recording and distribution of information. Leitu runs Le Phem Era, an interdisciplinary practice that critically examines ephemera in all its forms through unconventional methods of archiving and publishing. Leitu is motivated by experimentation, and the ways in which design can be used as a tool for research and communication.