Capstone // Too "FOB" to be Kiwi and too "plastic" to be Samoan.

Concept behind this idea was to work with people that feel lost and are questioning where they feel belong as an impact of diaspora. From a personal experience being a Samoan born and moving to New Zealand at the age of 8 it was a discussion that had a massive impact on my life that I never paid attention to until now. Going back to Samoa after being in New Zealand for 11 years was the trip that actually made me aware that I'm not the person that I thought I was.

Interviewing

I started interviewing people with my phone and asking them questions. 

- What worked was that the person that was being interviewed had a free flow of speech and they didn't hesitate to say anything they would say what they thought at the time and that was something I wanted.

-What didn't work was that i had to transcribe the interviews and that was gonna take long to do 

I had to have 2 different sets of questions because some people had options of moving out and some like myself didn't e.g my mu grew up knowing her culture already and that moving to New Zealand did not effect her connection to her culture like it did to me and my siblings.

The Diaspora generation

Profile form

Ethnicity:

Birth place:

Where do you live now?

What made you come to NZ?

Was it worth it?

Where is home?

Where do you feel belong?

Where is home?

Where do you feel belong?

How has being a diaspora impacted your connection with your culture? 

With the interviews everyone had different answer, people like Elisapeta her connection with her culture was not effected by her parents choice of moving over to New Zealand, which I thought was interesting but I still wanted to stick with my idea of only using people who are struggling with their culture in my project. The more I got to interview people the more decisions I had to make on who interview I wanted to use.

Elisapeta interview.

Profile

Elisapeta Ah Chong Thompson 😂

Where were you born: Moto’otua, Western Samoa

Ethnicity: Samoan Chinese

Where do you live now?

Manurewa, Auckland New Zealand

Where do you consider as home?

Samoa

Where do you feel belong?

Samoa, I'm originally from there so no matter where I go in life, I will always consider Samoa as my home.

Has being a diaspora impacted your connection with your culture, and if yes how?

To be honest, No it hasn't because like I said before no matter where I am I will still have a strong connection towards my culture A.K.A Aganu’u. I still get taught and treated like a tamaitai Samoa by my parents and elders. I reckon it all depends on the person and their parents, If you don't speak or get taught Fa’asamoa in your household or anywhere then that's where the problem of living in Diaspora begins.

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Mercy interview

Birth place:

Samoa

Ethnicity:

Samoan

Where do you live now?

Manurewa, Came to NZ when she was 7

Where do you consider as home?

Home is where my family, immediate family.

How has being a Diaspora affected you and your relation to your culture?

Being away from Samoa has affected my connection with my culture a lot, and School was the main cause of me losing that interest in my culture. There were Samoan classes in high school but I felt like I wasn't good enough to be in there like I wasn't Samoan enough. I think all this self doubt came from being called a “plastic” and I believed it, because the people that call me plastic were Samoans themselves and those people knew more about the Samoan culture better than I did so I ended up believing what they were saying because I had the idea that they knew better so I consider myself as a plastic Samoan.

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 In putting the work together I ended up not using all the interviews I felt like I had to to stick with what I believe in and show the ones I could relate most too. If I used all the other interviews and put them in the work it would hide what I wanted to share or what I wanted to voice out through my work and this is where I made the choice of using the 4 interviews. I think that these 4 were the strongest and the ones that made more sense to what i wanted to convey through my work.

With the first profile I made I simply made it simple like a normal flyer not much on the page to distract the viewer but focus on the writing. 

With the second one I edited the back ground on the photo because it was still distracting the not having a background gave it a nice clean look that I wanted to keep. The reason for the font was to have that script feel to it empathizing the idea of an interview or a typewriter.

 The idea of empathizing the "missing person" flyer is to create the idea of a person in search their identity or that missing piece of themselves and the reason for having them A3 is so that they can be seen clearly and especially with the texts. 

Exhibiting space.

I chose to exhibit outside because it was more open and a public space instead of having them inside like if you were actually looking for someone you would actually want to put them out and publicly as you could so that you can get to more people.

Wheat Paste.

I chose to use wheat paste because I wanted the posters to have that paste look that street posters have.

Final installation. 

Too "FOB" to be Kiwi and too "plastic" to be Samoan

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 Artist Biography

Grace Avealalo is a Samoan-born multi-media artist who focuses on the effects that Diaspora has on people who feel lost about who they are as well as where they belong. Avealalo does this through posters that she has created after interviewing other people who have fallen victim to the Diaspora influence.

Artist statement

Too “FOB” to be Kiwi but too “PLASTIC” to be Samoan.

Avealalo has always struggled with fitting in. Born in Samoa and moving to New Zealand at an adolescent age, Avealalo has struggled to fit in with society considering it as an uncomfortable place to live. Samoan being her first language and not knowing how to speak English confidently she was stereotyped as a FOB which Avelalao grew to accept. FOB stands for Fresh Off The Boat. FOB is used as a derogatory term for a recently arrived immigrant, who is perceived as lacking a firm grasp of the host country's language and culture. In 2013, Avealalo visited Samoa for the first time since her arrival in 2003. While being there she realised that she was treated differently, the feeling of comfort she thought she would find there did not exist. She was labeled as a “plastic” in her place of birth. The label of ‘Plastic’ is given to a person by someone else who feels that they have more cultural competence; that they speak the language; have more cultural knowledge. This was when Avealalo started feeling confused and lost with who she was.

This work “Too “-FOB” to be Kiwi but to “PLASTIC” to be Samoan” was inspired by her recent visit to Samoa. Avealalo has created posters with different people and their experiences with diaspora, sharing her own story hoping that it could give comfort to others who are struggling to fit in. Avealalo tries to convey the idea of a “lost identity” by creating missing flyer/posters to empathises the idea of a person that is in search of a missing piece of themselves and their identity.