item details
Overview
This is a 92 page, heavily illustrated, large format magazine called LOOP. This issue was published in 2000 and is titled Polifusion. It focuses on topics relating to Pacific art, culture and identity in Aotearoa New Zealand at the turn of the 21st century.
Significance
Magazines of the late 1980s to mid 1990s such as Auckland based Planet pioneered the profiling and documenting of the creative efforts of urban based Pacific peoples in New Zealand. However, it was a small Wellington based magazine called LOOP that published a timely special edition in 2000 under the editorial slogan Polifusion. Released with a complimentary compact disc of new music, the text and imagery captured what was happening among the present generation of Pacific people at the tyu urn of the century. LOOP spoke of 'morphing cultures and new forms of expression from loud minorities.
Magazines, and books like art galleries, museums and other types of institutions often function to validate the ideas and hierarchies they represent. While the nationwide impact of this particular edition is difficult to measure, it was nontheless a clear acknowledgment and validation of the Pacific influence in local art and fashion. It was an indication of mainstream New Zealand's recognition that something creative and significant was happening amongst Pacific peoples. It signalled an arrival, forecast for sometime, and a phenomenon that has continued to grow and develop in the ensuing decades.
This "Polifusion" edition of LOOP gathered a diverse range of interviews and commentaries covering the range of artistic engagement by New Zealanders of Maori and Polynesian descent. The articles highlighted the vocabulary of the time and place; the conversations, ways of speaking, being Polynesians in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Acquisition History
This magazine was purchased in 2001.
References
LOOP magazine Volume 2 No 4 Sept/Nov 2000
Mallon, S., & Pereira, P. F. (Eds.). (2002). Pacific art niu sila: the Pacific dimension of contemporary New Zealand arts. Te Papa Press, Museum of New Zealand.