Spending his early childhood years in Samoa, the vitality of John Ioane’s experience and feeling for his Samoan heritage resonates strongly in his work as an artist. Based in Auckland, John’s multidisciplinary practise involves sculpture, painting, installation and performance and often acknowledges the spiritual and transitional nature of space (the va) as a place of transformation birth and becoming.

"Sacred spaces are not necessarily a church, but it’s a place where one likes to be in, a place of affirmation."

John's celebrated installation Fale Sa (sacred house) consists of 500 carved cowry shells and three wooden totems that appear to come to life within a watery audio-light scape. Inspired by natural forms and the poetics of everyday life, Fale Sa connotes being rooted to one's culture and genealogical heritage as a source of strength, adaptation and beauty. It is in this same spirit that John creates his performance works and collaborations. Preferring to call them ‘rituals’ or ‘christenings’, he states:

"I’m not acting, there’s no rehearsal, what happens largely depends on the nature of the event, the space itself and what’s going on at the time."