The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre
An innovative multi-arts hub in the heart of Blacktown City.
Cook Island Australian artist, Morgan Hogg’s The last coconut drifted exhibition, takes its title from Manihikian poet Kauraka Kauraka.
Exploring culture and intergenerational knowledge sharing, Morgan celebrates her Cook Island heritage with video, sound, textiles and carving.
Woven throughout this exhibition is a sense of community, Morgan’s family and friends have been invited to make with her. Each piece then becomes imbued with many layers of history – both contemporary and traditional.
The last coconut drifted encourages viewers to take a moment to reflect on their own community and what stories or skills have been passed from one generation to another.
Family Day inspired by The last coconut drifted
The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre
Saturday 24 May
10 am to noon
Free, registration required
Gather the family and spend a morning at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre making, learning and sharing at our Family Day event.
Learn weaving techniques, create your own fabric print and share stories and knowledge from a Pasifika perspective.
Full program to be announced.
Artist Bio
| Morgan Hogg is an emerging artist and creative producer of Cook Island Māori (Ngāti Tāne), Tahitian and English descent, living and working on unceded Wangal and Dharug lands. Through the perspective of her Kūki ‘Airani heritage, Hogg utilises installation and performance as visual representations of her own exploration of cultural displacement and identity. Making space within her practice to rely on oral exchange between her familial relations and community, Hogg continues the story of her ancestry through maintaining traditional practices within a contemporary lens. She has completed a BVA(Hons)/ BAS (Film studies) at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. Currently studying a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Sydney. Hogg has exhibited and performed works at Firstdraft, Performance Space, Beirut Art Centre, Sculpture by the Sea, Bankstown Arts Centre, SCA Gallery, Casula Powerhouse, PICA, Carriageworks and the Art Gallery of NSW. Follow Morgan on Instagram here |
Kauraka Kauraka was born in Avatiu, Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. He earned his BA from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and an MA in anthropology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Of Manihiki, Mangaian, and Chinese descent, Kauraka explored Polynesian cultural history and traditions in his work, including oral and folk forms. He authored six collections of poetry in English and Cook Island Maori, including Return to Havaiki (1985) Dreams of a Rainbow: Moemoea a Te Anuanua: Poems (1987), Manakonako (Reflections) (1992), and My Dawning Star (1999). In addition to being a poet, writer, and musician, Kauraka was a professional anthropologist with the Ministry of Cultural Development, Cook Islands, at the time of his death.
You can buy his works on various platforms online.
This project is presented by Blacktown Arts and supported by Blacktown City Council.
