29/08/2026
We are incredibly proud to announce that Ezra Tevaga has been named the overall winner of the Te Uru Secondary Art Award 2026, E Tipu, E Rea. This is the Third year Liston Students have won the award.
The annual exhibition celebrates outstanding emerging artistic talent from secondary schools across West Auckland. This year’s exhibition runs from 29 August–13 September at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, with the overall winner selected by guest judge Associate Professor Linda Tyler, art historian, writer and academic from the University of Auckland. Ezra received the $1,000 overall award, generously supported by the Lopdell Trust.
Ezra Tevaga
Tuiga Series: Blackbirding, Dawn Raids, Black Saturday
2026
Photography / Sculpture
In his sculptural and photographic series, Ezra reimagines the tuiga, a ceremonial Samoan headdress traditionally associated with chiefly status, leadership and responsibility. Worn during significant ceremonies and performances, the tuiga communicates identity, genealogy and collective memory. Ezra uses this traditional form as a way of carrying and retelling significant moments from Pacific history.
Using contemporary and repurposed materials, Ezra created three wearable headpieces responding to painful histories affecting Pacific peoples. The first reflects on blackbirding, when Pacific peoples were kidnapped, deceived and transported to work under exploitative conditions. The central work responds to the Dawn Raids, which disproportionately targeted Pacific families in Aotearoa during the 1970s. The third commemorates Black Saturday in Sāmoa, when members of the Mau independence movement were fired upon by New Zealand police in 1929.
Through photographing the tuiga being worn, these histories are presented not simply as events of the past, but as living memories carried into the present. The tuiga becomes a contemporary form of storytelling, remembrance, resistance and cultural reclamation.
A huge congratulations to Ezra on this outstanding achievement. We are incredibly proud to see his work, his culture and these important Pacific histories recognised at this level.
