Lia Pa’apa’a is an interdisciplinary artist and creative producer specialising in community arts and cultural development (CACD), currently based on Yidinji lands in Cairns, Australia with her partner and two young children. Her creative practice is grounded by her cultural connections to Samoa and the Luiseño nation of Southern California, and through respectful community engagement, her work creates culturally safe spaces for capacity building, collaboration and intergenerational exchange across multi-artforms.
For a decade and a half, Pa’apa’a has carved out a unique career within the Arts, facilitating cultural festivals, conferences, workshops and community projects such as Artback NT’s Indigenous Traditional Dance Program (2013-17), the Contemporary Pacific Arts Festival (2013-15) and Pacific Stories (2010, 2011). She has worked with a variety of organisations including Biddigal Performing Arts and Rize of the Morning Star. In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship for Community Arts Cultural Development.
Pa’apa’a’s most recent project, Ngamumu (For Mothers) supports mothers with arts and cultural practices during the first 1000 days and beyond. In 2022, Pa’apa’a co-created the First Nations Children’s Festival as a gathering for connection to country and community through art workshops, cooking, weaving, music and storytelling in a celebration of First Nations perspectives and the next generation.
At the heart of Pa’apa’a’s work is the reclamation and reimagining of ancestral practices to inform culturally conscious creative processes that support, empower and advocate for the people and communities she engages and collaborates with. Through this, her practice creates meaningful experiences embracing creativity, family and community in a way that inspires growth and transformation into the future.
In this Colour Box Studio interview, Pa’apa’a reflects on Plant Based Native – her project exploring ancestral diet and cultural connection, the significance of living and working in remote NT communities, and art as a medium for indigenous sovereignty.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
My name is Lia Pa’apa’a and I am a CACD artist and practitioner with cultural connections to Samoa and the Luiseño Nation of Southern California. My work centres around creating culturally and creative safe spaces for people to come together. This has meant that I have been able to work across artworks on both small intimate gatherings and large festival contexts. At the heart of it is hosting, nourishing and supporting people to tell their stories.
How did you start your creative practice and why?
Looking back now I realise that I have always looked for ways to connect to my mixed heritages. Growing up in Naarm as the first generation born in Australia I looked for ways to strengthen my sense of identity. Creatively this lead me to practices of weaving, craft, cooking and dance. As a CACD practitioner more specifically I started producing projects as the Australian and Global Indigenous Educator at a large P-12 college in western Melbourne. My role was to engage primarily Pacifica and First Nations young people and I found that in order to that in a meaningful way I needed to engage arts and cultural practitioners. The project was such a beautiful combination of curriculum development, supporting other teachers and community engagement and I was really able to see the impact that it had with both the young people, but also their families and communities. When the project was de-funded I moved across to the Arts where I continued to create these spaces initially for young people and then elders and the general public.
Where did you grow up and how has it influenced your practice?
I grew up in San Diego where my Luiseño roots stem from until I was five years old so I always felt connection to those lands and my family there. After that I lived in housing commission house with my Mum and little sister. I believe that this definitely influenced my practice. Mum always taught us that there was always enough food and spaces for people to sleep and that all were welcome and although we did it tough we were also acutely aware that we were better off than so many others. Mum volunteered at Community Aid abroad and the Aboriginal Advancement League, eventually working at ATSIC. This meant that there was a strong sense of social justice and community installed into us from a young age and both my sister and I have maintained that as foundational to our arts practices.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been your most treasured creation /or a highlight so far?
I have been a part of so many amazing projects over the past 15 years and feel incredibly blessed to have been invited into cultural spaces that I didn’t belong to. I lived and worked in the remote NT community of Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria alongside a local woman Marlene Timothy for Artback NT and was welcomed into the community in what became a powerful project and model of best practice CACD for a remote community context.
I also had the honour of leading a team of amazing Pacifica artists to develop and deliver three Contemporary Pacific Arts Festivals at FCAC from 2013-2015. After working most of my Arts career within First Nations contexts I was so happy to be bale to provide opportunities for my own Pacifica community. Seeing young people perform, the artists come together in new innovative ways and creating a platform that so many artists benefitted from has definitely been a highlight.
Tell us about your current project/ art work?
After having my first son in 2017 my arts practice had to change from remote community based work to something very localised in Gimuy Cairns where I live. I also recognised that it had to be incredibly important and worthwhile to take me away from this little human. I developed my practice as a creative and cultural response to my own birthing, postpartum and motherhood journey focussing on the first 1000 days (conception to the age of two). I now work in a collective of global indigenous mamas and artists to deliver programming across the Cairns region and deliver professional developments to health/arts/education workers to be more inclusive of art and culture in their work with mothers during this sacred and vulnerable time.
Who or what inspires your practice?
It has always been my community that has inspired me but as a mother of two boys now I have to say that their needs and our family values and lifestyle play a really large part in what I do. As my son Temét grows older I recognise the need for more First Nations programming for children and have since developed and delivered the inaugural First Nations Childrens Festival in 2022. I see and feel the gaps and much of my work has been filling these spaces. I am now homeschooling Temét so as our needs as a family change so does my work practice. The ability to shift, adapt and respond to what you and your community needs is at the heart of CACD practice and it has proven invaluable for my work/life balance.
Where do you feel most creative and why?
I love the chance to cook up a storm in my kitchen! My first solo creative project was called Plant Based Native where I dived into an ancestral diet as part of cultural connection for me and my son. It lead me down the most beautiful political and creative path of food and food politics and brings me so much joy to create meal for people to share, learn and nourish themselves.
What do you hope audiences take from your work? What’s the best compliment you’ve received from a show or work?
My work is about making sure people feel safe, nurtured and valued. I often get the compliment of how chill the space or event was. And they are chill, but it comes with a lot of planning and hard work to create that laid back accessible vibe for people to engage. My current work poses a lot of questions of self and ancestral exploration as a means to support mothers in their journey. Mamas have thanked and cried in appreciation for the village and creativity that we have been able to support them with singing their 1000 days. To hear a mama say that it has helped shape her parenting journey for the better for herself and her baby and family is what it’s all about.
What gets you through creative challenges or tough industry times?
Adaptability. I no longer on the phase of climbing any ladders of success. In fact there isn’t a company in Australia that I even want to work for at this point. I create my own work which although empowering is also exhausting. I think staying true to my values, being available for new roles and work outside my comfort zone and living simply and locally I have been able to maintain being an independent artist for the last eight years.
What future projects are you looking forward to?
I am excited by Ngamumu and the potential it has to create meaningful change in mamas lives on a global scale. I want to ensure that the project outlives my capacity to manage it. I am excited to continue to support artists to create innovative youth programming in arts and culture. I am excited to develop spaces online amd fave to face for mothers and creativity from indigenous perspectives and I am excited to continue to explore how life as a mama and artist can be maintained in a nourishing and supported way.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
Currently the work Aseel Taylah is doing for her Palestinian community and all of us is phenomenal and needs to be recognised. For me the point of art has always been around indigenous sovereignty through storytelling and Aseel has such an important message and a process that allows for real change. I’m also digging Gimuy local mama artist Talicia Bolea and her work across jewellery making, storytelling, decolonizing and activism. I love seeing how people can integrate their art and culture I to their work and Talicia as First Nations home schooling artist and mama is living her values for her family and community.
Where can we find and follow you online?
I am in socials as @liapaapaa and slowly but surely activating my website: www.liapaapaa.com
If you’re into art and creativity check out these Colour Box Studio interviews with other creatives: click here.
Want to learn more about your creative community? Sign up to the Colour Box Studio Newsletter here.
