What if the past isn't behind you, but in front? This is the provocation at the heart of a Māori proverb — ka mua, ka muri — which holds that what has already happened lies ahead of us, while what is yet to come presents itself from behind. Found also in ancient Greece and Indigenous African thought, this idea is more than a simple inversion. Time, in this understanding, is a sphere — still at its core, yet one within which we rotate, reorienting our temporal perceptions in multiple ways. A literal translation of ka mua, ka muri could be - 'the past in front happens just as what will happen is behind".

Over twenty years of filmmaking, and through recent research with the Vā Moana - Pacific Spaces group at Auckland University of Technology, this idea has become the foundation of a new way of thinking about cinema. Drawing on Oceanic understandings of time and space — the concept of Tā\Vā/Wā — and in conversation with Bergson, Deleuze, Maya Deren, and Mark Fisher, we have been developing cinematic ideas and practices that take this seriously.

The diagram below maps Tā\Vā/Wā (roughly: time/space, and the space-between) in relation to the cinematic cut — the moment of edit where, we argue, something stranger than continuity is possible. This research has led directly to a new feature film, Ghost South Road. At its heart is the same provocation: not simply a reversal of time, but an invitation to reorient.

Talanoa with Maualaivao Emeritus Professor Albert Wendt on his rendition of teu le vā as an important concept in Sāmoan and Moananui thought recorded November 2020 at his home in Tāmaki Makaurau. Wendt crucially ignited a wide discussion of what vā means for Samoan communities in Aotearoa New Zealand through his 1996 keynote, “Tatauing the Post-Colonial Body”.

Talanoa with Dr. Valance Smith (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, Ngāti Haina, Ngāti Pākehā), Assistant Pro-Vice Chancellor (Māori Advancement) at Auckland University of Technology, about similarities and differences between the connotations of vā (Sāmoan) and wā (Māori). February 2021.

Talanoa with Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal (Marutūahu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāpuhi) in March 2021. He takes a creative and performative perspective on thinking in time and space, and beyond time and space, through wā (as well as related concepts in Polynesian languages).

Talanoa with Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu Dr. ‘Ōkusitino Māhina in March 2022, on his experiences as a student of the late Futa Helu and how he sees vā as not only as a system that structures relationships, but also as an integral part of artistic endeavours in Moana societies like the rhythmic beating and marking of time.

Pita Turei (Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Pāoa, Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi) is known for his work as a curator, sculptor, dancer, Māori ritual specialist and staunch cultural and iwi advocate, storyteller and orator. In December 2020, Pita describes his understanding of vā/wā as a multi-disciplinary Māori arts practitioner and his engagement with artists from Moananui since the 1980s.

Talanoa with Prof. Anne Salmond in March 2021 about her experiences of wā with Eruera Stirling, as well as her conversations with Patu Hohepa, Manuka Henare and other scholars, of non-linear, dynamic Māori conceptions of time and space as a spiral or vortex. Such configurations allow thinking through whakapapa, and in connected past/present/future dimensions.

Talanoa with Dr. Iʻuogafa Tuagalu in March 2022 (Satuimalufilufi and Tauʻese, Sāmoa) about his current research on developing an Indigenous history of Sāmoa through an understanding of how vā structures Samoan kinship or gafa. He also advances the idea that vā takes effect as an energetic field that causes action to be felt at a distance.

The Honourable Le Afioga Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa replies to Lealiʻifano Albert Refiti’s question in June 2022 about the Samoan notion of vā on her visit to Te Wānanga Aronui Auckland University of Technology. Fiamē is the seventh Prime Minister of Sāmoa and the first woman to do so as leader of the Faʻatuatua i le Atua Sāmoa ua Tasi party since 2021.

Talanoa with Lupematasila Associate Professor Melani Anae in May 2022 about the concept of teu le vā and its development in Samoan communities, as well as the educational and health sectors in Aotearoa. Anae is an important early contributor to the development of the concept of vā, particularly in Pasifika education.

Talanoa with Emeritus Professor Serge Tcherkezoff in July 2022 about his growing understanding of vā, since he first visited Sāmoa in the early 1980s. As an anthropologist, he has reflected on its use in Sāmoa and in the diasporas of Aotearoa and Australia – but also on its deployment in international, mostly academic contexts as a concept in anthropology, education and health sciences.

In this talanoa in her studio in December 2021, Rosanna Raymond talks about her developing understanding and practice of vā in her art, museum and conservation practices as a researcher, author, and restless artist. She has inspired many working with vā, through discussion and action.

In this talanoa of August 2022, prolific painter and art educator Lily Laita recalls her art school years and the genesis of a Pacific contemporary art scene in Auckland. Laita describes vā as both a space she inhabits during the painting process, and the space beyond the canvas that becomes layered in her works.

In July 2022, Dr. Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura; Tainui) discusses the impact of the understanding of wā (vā in Sāmoa/Tonga) in Māori philosophy, especially in the drawings and writings of Tainui scholar Pei Te Hurinui Jones (1898–1976) and their use in emerging Indigenous understandings of time and space by Moana artists and researchers.

In September 2022, Dr. Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi scholar and artist whose answers the question, “what is the wā in Hine?” Articulating the position of women in Moananui within the wā and vā, Nālani advances the idea that wā and Hina are the ebb and flow of the ocean, freshwater sources, rain, wind; the source for everything.

In May 2022, Principal Investigators on the Marsden-funded project, Profs. Albert L. Refiti and Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul share the main aims of the research and talanoa series and discuss with Rosanna Raymond the genesis of the Vā Moana: space and relationality in Pacific thought and Identity research project.