Don't Cry My Moko acts as a healing space for us to piece ourselves together. An unfinished Tīvaevae and a pearl trapped in its shell, an act of infinitely navigating ourselves and our ancestral lineage. 

The Tīvaevae is a laborious practice, a physical display of Cook Island values, womanliness, mothering and the pursuit of mana. We look at the Tīvaevae as a mode of storytelling in materialising the values of kinship and aro’a (love) within the intergenerational Pacific pedagogy. Making space for Indigenous concepts such as tapu (the sacred) and vaerua ora (the spiritually uplifting) to emerge within these patterned stories. In the various stages of Tīvaevae making, this ‘cut and tack’ technique sits right in the middle, before the women come together to embroider, holding together by one continuous thread.

 Recognising the ‘enua we stand on and the place we originate from, this work investigates the familial diasporic materiality that is interwoven throughout our histories. Making us question and doubt our level of pasifikaness that we hold, a breaking point of feeling Plastik. 

Morgan Hogg, Don't Cry My Moko, 2023, Embroidery on quilt fabric, tivaevae, woven mat, Pupu shell necklaces, crochet doily, pearl shells, pearl shell necklace, tivaevae pillows and gardenia oil. Single screen video, 04:13 mins. , Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship Exhibition, SCA, Sydney. Documentation by Document Photography.