Join The Ball & Vogue It Pasifika And Queer with FAFSWAG

Since around 2012, interdisciplinary arts collective FAFSWAG has been creating a safe space for one of the most marginalised communities in Aotearoa New Zealand – LGBTIQ+ people from Oceania.

Made up of gender and sexually diverse indigenous creatives, spanning Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Cook Islands, Māori, Tokelau and mixed European heritage; the collective was born out of a group of friends dealing with being queer and Pacific – tackling not only how their communities can demonise them but also the absence of their identity in mainstream queer media and culture. Rather than be spoken for, FAFSWAG are actively creating a space to express themselves and question how they are represented by both the mainstream and communities they would be assumed to belong to

The collective started off by setting up vogue balls in the very environments they lived in – Polynesian, conservatively Christian, low-income, South Auckland neighbourhoods. Just as marginalised black and Latino communities in the US took up the bold, defiant art forms of vogueing and hip hop, so too have Indigenous communities in New Zealand.

For these young people, vogueing provided a way of life; an opportunity to make money and be encouraged to be loved, vibrant and make a statement through how they presented themselves visually. It was often the only space to freely and safely explore and express their identity in a community where not all trans, queer, coloured Pacific people were necessarily out, understood, or even safe from the threat of violence.

This underground scene swiftly went mainstream after the collective put on a ball as part of Auckland Festival, with voguers of all flavours strutting their stuff in categories like F*** the Police and Free West Papua; taking it from an annual to a nearly monthly event at the long-established city centre LGBT venue Family Bar. In 2017, VICE Media documented FAFSWAG and the Auckland ‘vogueing’ phenomenon, and the following year, released an interactive video experience in collaboration with film-maker Taika Waititi (later the first person of Māori descent to win an Oscar).

Not wanting this success to distract from the wider multi-disciplinary work of the collective, it has continued to grow an online audience and wider recognition. FAFSWAG has cut a distinctive, appealing movement by immersing their cutting-edge, socially relevant work in Kiwi popular culture, as they share their voices on topics like saying no to colonial constructs (with the phrase ‘Tulou Bitch!), trying to navigate the arts/creative industry, how womxn, femmes and non-binary people are re-centering power globally, documenting queer men of colour and their experiences of intimacy, and connecting to Indigenous knowledge of gender identities.

This year, the group was presented with a New Zealand Arts Foundation 2020 Laureate Award for interdisciplinary arts, for their collaborative approach to activating public and digital spaces. During lockdown, FAFSWAG were outspoken on the pressure for creatives to suddenly go 'online' and the limitations of shifting an entire community-based practice online; demonstrating how the future of art is in social spaces and community gathering.

Supported by Creative New Zealand, it was also, among other prominent Māori and Pasifika artists, invited to participate in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020) led by Brook Andrew - the first Indigenous artist in Australia to be appointed artistic director of the biennale. This year’s programme is entitled NIRIN (meaning ‘EDGE’) - a word of Andrew’s mother’s Nation - the Wiradjuri people of central western New South Wales. For this, the collective created a project called Code Switch: Re-Learn, Re-Imagine, Re-Create A FAFSWAG MANIFESTO.

The rising profile of such creatives reflects a growing call across the globe to push boundaries and challenge misconceptions about fluid, multiple identities, whether in race, gender, sexuality, geography, culture, time or space. For FAFSWAG, it’s about more than entertainment – it’s also about social change and justice to improve the quality of life for communities like theirs - often over-represented in suicide statistics yet lack adequate rainbow Pasifika support services in a country with some of the most progressive laws and policies in the world.

As Queer Indigenous arts practitioners, they are creating new narratives that represent their communities, fostering a connection amongst Pasifika people navigating their unique identities within Aotearoa. At the same time they are able to appeal beyond their own collective – drawing on their Pacific sense of community, collectivism, sister and brotherhood to become a respected part of the arts scene and gain popularity both in their home country and beyond. Follow FAFSWAG on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Words: Reshma Madhi