White Fungus Article
(Experimental Arts Magazine, April 2005)
Bordering somewhere between dream, myth and critical reality, the films of Wellington artist Veialu Aila-Unsworth question ideas of culture, identity, time and space. Spurred by a deep personal search, Aila-Unsworth goes beyond the surface of mythology to tell stories that affirm and connect. Located deep within her imagination, her films are as lucid as they are direct.
With a New Zealand mother and Papua New Guinean father, Aila-Unsworth has always been pulled between cultures. “I was born in Papua New Guinea but moved to New Zealand when I was about four,” she says. “I’ve only been back once and that was to go and meet my father, my real father… It’s a part of me that I’m yet to fully explore.”
It was the need to better understand her Papua New Guinean culture that prompted Aila-Unsworth to make her first film ‘Yu Bilong Weh?’ (Pidgin for ‘where are you from?’), a documentary about Wellington’s Papua New Guinean community.
“Because I grew up with my mother – who’s pakeha and from a white family – I never really felt like I could own my Papua New Guineaness. Part of doing this film was me going ‘Ok I’ve got to own my Papua New Guineaness in this country’, just stick it out there that I really didn’t know my identity when it comes to being Papua New Guinean.
“It started off as an idea, from a personal point of view being mixed race and saying ‘well what does this mean?’ and also because I feel that Papua New Guinean is a Pacific culture in New Zealand that’s almost non-existent. You never hear about other Papua New Guineans. You never meet other Papua New Guineans.” (read more)
