During her time as Matafatafa Aho Pacific Artist in Residence at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum, Sofia Tekela-Smith was able to look through collection drawers and storerooms, encountering taonga from her homeland that may not have seen a Rotuman face for decades.

When she met something of interest, she mentioned it in her family group chat. The replies from her cousins usually drew on their collective childhood memories of the island; sometimes the response was ‘that’s tē väväri’ (ordinary, unimportant), followed by questions: why was a simple mat in the collection alongside valuable items?

Whale teeth were highly prized taonga for Rotuman people, signifying chiefly status and often buried with the owner. Encountering the abundance of whale teeth in the museum’s collection, Tekela-Smith was spurred to consider the form further. Working with glass artist Stephen Bradbourne, she conjured ghostly whale teeth in glass – constructs that could be everything and nothing, ordinary and extraordinary, all at once.

Each tooth is embellished via different methods, drawing on objects of adornment across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa and family heirlooms from Tekela-Smith’s whakapapa in Scotland. These pieces echo the vibrations the artist felt when connecting with the legacy of her people through taonga and their connected memories held within the museum. 

Although powerful colonial structures severed many Pacific people from their culture, the museum and its colonial collection has also enabled deep connections and stronger kinship. Tekela-Smith offers these new works to her ancestors in remembrance of the taonga taken from her home shores.

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Sofia Tekela-Smith lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Sofia was raised on the island of Rotuma by her maternal grandmother until the early 1980s, when she returned to Aotearoa. Her adornment practice uses traditional materials, bone, stone and shell, drawing from her heritage and family connections. Her work is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. She received the Pacific Contemporary Artist Award at Creative New Zealand’s 2025 Arts Pasifika Awards.

Tekela-Smith’s three months as Matafatafa Aho Pacific Artist in Residence at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum allowed her to dive deeply into knowledge systems that she did not have access to before. Her research spanned star charts, maps, anthropological accounts and diaries of European travellers’ time in Rotuma. This exhibition is one of multiple outcomes unfolding from the residency.