The reading group Reading Environments | That which endures in conjunction with exhibition Vaiei Tupuna, continues with the second session, That which feeds.

In this session we will read alongside the project ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina the following excerpts: “That Which Feeds: Sacred Solidarities and Roots of Resistance” (2021) by Emalani Case, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 62(2): pp132–142; and “The Little Rock That Feeds” (2015) by Katerina Teaiwa in Consuming Ocean Island: Stories of People and Phosphate from Banaba, Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press: pp 3–27.

“I thought about how we must be like roots, spreading and growing in solidarity with all that feeds, with ʻaina. I thought about how our roots of resistance must be nourishing, engaging, able to find their way in the dark, in the heaviness, in the seemingly impossible. I thought about how being rooted in place is not about claiming it, but about feeding it because we have been fed.”
- Excerpt from Emalani Case, “That Which Feeds: Sacred Solidarities and Roots of Resistance” p141

Reading Environments continues is in its sixth series, with Dr April Henderson Programme Director of Va'aomanū Pasifika—Programme in Pacific Studies and Samoan Studies at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, bringing together readings under the theme of That which endures.

Inspired by the enduring wairua of tapa’s ancestors and present-day practitioners, this series prompts conversations about people’s relationships with each other, their material and non-material worlds, and their histories and futures. Collectively, these works present a taste of Oceanic thinking of global relevance in a world shaped by persistent colonial legacies, the capitalist commodification of seemingly everything, and the existential threat of climate crisis.

Reading Environments is a reading group open to all, for reading, listening and thinking together. Hosted by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington academics Su Ballard (Art History) Bonnie Etherington and Adam Grener (English Literatures and Creative Communication), Reading Environments invites academics, students and interested members of the public to delve into and discuss work in – and adjacent to – the Environmental Humanities, helping us navigate the changing environmental contexts of the planet. Excerpts are read in the context of art works on view in the gallery.