What’s for Dinner is a new commission by Fa’amele Etuale for the Te Tuhi Project Wall. Presented as an installation, the exhibition reflects the artist’s experience of poverty and the responsibility of caring for one’s family as the eldest child.
Made of easily accessible materials such as cardboard, newspapers, tape, and glue, What’s for Dinner recreates an everyday moment of scarcity. Black silhouettes represent the absence of food, evoking a powerful contrast between what is seen and what is missing.
What’s for Dinner challenges us to reconsider an everyday question asked in homes around the world, revealing how this seemingly simple enquiry can carry vastly different associations: of insecurity and fear, or the burden of providing. Etuale’s work is a call for understanding, compassion, and kindness—a reminder of the reality of those who face uncertainty around something as fundamental as a meal.
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About the artist
Fa’amele Etuale is a contemporary jeweller and painter. When crafting her jewels, influenced by her Samoan heritage, Etuale works with metal to modernize and preserve the objects she creates. Her paintings, instead, explore experiences of the Pacific diaspora in Aotearoa, as well as family relationships and memories.
Etuale completed a Bachelor in Creative Arts and an Advanced Diploma in Jewellery at Manukau Institute of Technology. In 2020, Etuale was the receiver of the Tautai Fale-ship Home Residency. Her recent exhibitions include: Calling Heaven, 2024 at Māngere Arts Centre, Remember Me, 2021 at Fresh Gallery Ōtara, and Oh My Ocean, 2021 at Tautai Pacific Arts Trust. From March to December 2024, Etuale was provided a studio at Te Tuhi through the Papatūnga artist development programme.