A creative producer, native technologist, voyager, and storyteller, Tania hails from the Maori tribes of Aotearoa New Zealand and the beautiful island of Vava’u, of the Kingdom of Tonga. Following ancestral footsteps, she creates cultural taonga (treasures) in multiple media from stone and bronze to augmented and virtual reality. With her Global Reach Initiative and Development (GRID) Pacific Team, she captures incredible high-resolution imagery of Pacific peoples, places, cultures, and languages that (with their permission) is shared with the world.
“In 2000, upon reading that our local government planned to put a culturally inappropriate sculpture in our harbor, my husband (a Māori / Hawaiian Master Carver) and I were outraged and decided we must create a pou. [Pou are carved wooden posts used by Māori to mark territorial boundaries or places of significance]. During the creation of this Pou Kapua I contracted meningococcal septicaemia, a disease with one agenda: to take over and kill every possible cell in the body. While medical intervention and penicillin played an important role, they only went so far. It was my whanau (family) who kept me alive, when my mauri ora (life force) was weak and my wairua (spirit) on the verge of departure.
The true aroha (love) that I received during that period was such a powerful force that my wairua decided it must stay. While physically scarring, it was a time for me to reflect on what I valued most in life. Hands down, it was all about my whanau — my tamariki (children), my parents and siblings, my younger sister Rachel, and my hoa rangatira (husband) Wikuki.”
