Dr Lana Lopesi
Dr Lana Lopesi MNZM is a public intellectual and leading scholar in Moana contemporary arts and Indigenous identities and feminisms. An assistant professor at the University of Oregon, Lana has written two books, edited several others – including the comprehensive new volume Pacific Arts Aotearoa (Penguin) – and co-founded Flying Fetu, an organisation uplifting the work of Moana writers in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Her thought leadership is exceptional. Reviewers found her first book, False Divides (Bridget Williams, 2018), to be “brilliant” in its exploration of how the political and linguistic separations imposed by imperialism between islands and peoples in Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean) might be bridged with solidarity and social media. Her second book Bloody Woman (Bridget Williams, 2021) was even more well-received: a collection of meticulously researched and personal essays on being a Samoan woman, it was longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and was described as a “must-read” (Pelenakeke Brown) and as “holding precious insights, knowledge and wisdoms” (Tusiata Avia).
Lana also co-edited Towards a Grammar of Race: In Aotearoa New Zealand (Bridget Williams, 2022) and Pacific Spaces: Translations and Transmutations (Berghahn Books, 2022). She developed theories of Moana (Pacific) art in her doctorate, and she led the Creative New Zealand Pacific Art Legacy Project (a digital-first Pacific art history told from the perspective of the artists). In arts media, she is co-editor of the Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art; she was previously arts editor at Metro magazine and editor-in-chief and interim director at online platform Pantograph Punch.
All this – and two children – and she is still only 31. Unsurprisingly, the second-generation New Zealander of Samoan, English and Canadian descent is sometimes underestimated. “I’m not a type-A personality, I’m pretty comfortable in the background and just observing, which people see in a certain way,” she says. “I was pregnant with my daughter in my honours year, and being a young Pacific mum carries a lot of assumptions as well.” She has quietly smashed stereotypes, with the support of her partner and her parents, whose work ethic inspires Lana. “Sometimes I forget to stop and actually look up, but I’d say I’m in a pretty good place.”
Lana says her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts was foundational for the way she thinks now. At Elam “I learnt how to be critical of the things around me, I shaped my own voice, and grew confident in using it,” she says. Her unexpected return to academia, after working as an artist and art critic “was a return to the love of the ideas and the intellectual play that was fostered at the University of Auckland”. She also took classes in Pacific Studies; a particular influence was art historian and curator Nina Tonga whose classes, says Lana, “totally opened my eyes and were key for the work I do now”.
Having applied for her current role as an “absolute long shot” with the goal of making it to the first round of interviews, she is now aiming for academic tenure and is on the University of Oregon Advisory Council for Native American and Indigenous Studies. Many of her Pacific students have never before had a Pacific teacher or learnt about the Pacific within their formal education, so “connecting students to this incredibly rich body of Pacific scholarship is beyond rewarding,” says Lana, who loves helping students find their voice and gain confidence, as her lecturers helped her. “We all remember that lecturer or that mentor who opened up the world for us. I can’t be that for everyone, but if I can be that for someone, then it makes it all worth it for me.”