Raffia Cook Island Costume Making

In this hands-on workshop, kids will learn how to make their own Raffia Cook Island dance costume raffia allowing them to recognise the importance of caring for Country with natural materials. Led by emerging artists Morgan Hogg and Benny Akulia, participants will focus on making a traditional skirt, leg bands or adornments utilising a specific knotting method to create a finished costume that you can dance with! 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 country. 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. Benjamin Akuila (b.2000) is a multidisciplinary artist of Tongan and Irish descent living and working in Eora and Dharug country. Akuila’s work explores ideas of cultural authenticity, and identity performances within the Tongan-Australian diaspora through the material use of clay. Through investigating societal constructs of history, identity, and gender, Akuila utilises humour and heliaki (allusion) to subvert these preconceived notions. Akuila's work reinterprets traditional Tongan artmaking and applies these practices to contemporary materials to explore new narratives of identity.