Manuha’apai Vaeatangitau (Lapaha, ‘Utulau, Tongatapu) is an interdisciplinary artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau who often engages with themes of eroticism and critical fabulation in her work, seeking to reassert queer Pacific identities into social and cultural contexts.
Having garnered early recognition as the 2019 Creative New Zealand and Massey University Arts and Creativity category winner at the Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards, Vaeatangitau’s work has since been exhibited throughout Auckland and Wellington.
Following her solo exhibition Tupu’anga o Leitī at Moana Fresh Kū Kahiko Gallery in 2021 and her shared installation in collaboration with Sione Monū Kindred: A Leitī Chronicle at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki in 2022, Vaeatangitau was named the 2023 recipient of the Aniva Arts Residency. Her second solo exhibition, Koe Tau’atāina o e Leitī: The Freedom/Emancipation of the Leitī at Pātaka Art + Museum, is the result of the time she spent at the Aniva Arts Residency. Vaeatangitau's most recent inclusion in Auckland Art Gallery’s triennial Aotearoa Contemporary (2024) shines light on her practice amidst Aotearoa’s artistic landscape.
As a screenwriter/reluctant performer for TV and film, she plays the role of Pua and is a contributing writer to the second season of NEON/Prime TV Show Not Even. Collaborations with celebrated artists’ Sione Monū and Coco Solid, being a member of Coco’s Solid’s Rupture 2024 creative team, cultivates Vaeatangitau’s reputation as an exciting critical thinker and creator.