Samoan author Dr Lana Lopesi and a team of editors have published Pacific Arts Aotearoa, a book detailing the legacy of Pasifika art and artists over six decades.

New Zealand news site Stuff reports that containing the contributions of more than 120 voices, the book started with an open invitation. An email or letter to Pasifika creatives, entreating them to write their stories.

“We didn’t know what we were going to get a lot of the time,” Dr. Lopesi told Stuff.

She is reported as saying that her request to artists for Pacific Arts Aotearoa, published by Penguin, was vague, telling them she wants them involved, so just, write what you want.

Thanks to their responses, she curated - along with designer Shaun Naufahu and project manager and past Short Story Awards judge Faith Wilson - the story of the Pacific impact on Aotearoa’s arts scene, as told by the creatives themselves.

“I think one piece that feels really incredible right now is from Lily Laita, an artist who wrote about her work,” Dr. Lopesi told Stuff.

“She passed away between doing that writing and then the book coming out, so being able to have those little moments of stories captured that we're not going to get the chance to do that again… It’s not quite uncovering something but just opening the space for those things to be able to happen.”

Lily Aitui Laita (Ngāti Raukawa, Samoan) was the first Pasifika woman to graduate from Elam School of Fine Arts in 1990, and was a founding member of Tautai Pacific Arts Trust. Te Papa holds 18 of her works in its collection. She died on Friday, October 6.

Dr. Lopesi said she hopes Pacific Arts Aotearoa will invoke a sense of pride in its audience, whether Pasifika or not.

“It’s not often we have the ability to just stop and reflect on that and just be like, what everyone's done is actually so cool.

“I think if people haven't been a part of these things directly themselves, I hope they have a new kind of appreciation for the amazing Pacific artists who have been a part of this country and maybe a renewed or a new kind of love of Pacific arts in the way that all of us that are involved love it. I think there is something there for everyone.”

The writer, editor and academic lives in Oregon, and is an assistant professor in the department of Indigenous Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.

She teaches Pacific Islander studies, Indigenous feminisms and contemporary art, and in 2021 published her second book, Bloody Woman, which was shortlisted by the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.