Leala Faleseuga

Analogue photography is my first love, the medium in which experienced my first forays into photography.

2003.

Taken in Salelologa, of my aiga.

Vessel is a work that I created in 2016, documenting the pregnancy, premature birth and NICU stay of my twin daughters. It was completely shot on Polaroid film, something I love for it’s object quality. It consists of over 100 images. The work is paired with writing, my freewriting response to each image as I view them. The writing component changes with each showing, representing the changing nature of a story each time you retell it.

This work has been shown twice:

• Yours to Tell, RM Gallery, 2016

• M/other, Whakatane Museum, 2019

• Read Matariki Williams’ review of M/other for Pantograph Punch here

A photographic study of the Sāmoan Methodist Congregation of the iconic Wesley Methodist Church in Taranaki St. My uncle was the Reverend at the time.

Shot on slide film, late 2006.

Alternative processing such as gum bichromate, cyanotypes and salt prints are a passion of mine. I vastly appreciate the mix of photography, printmaking and painting, and the serendipitous results ripe with gesture and presence.

I love using these old analogue processes in a layered and circular way, often using digital imagery to create negatives to create prints. I then scan these mixed-media images to then manipulate digitally and start the process again. The result is images that are layered with process, context and technique.

Product of New Zealand? was my first solo show in 2015, created as part of my GradDip Applied Arts with Whitireia. Within it houses a lot of seminal works and ideas that I continue to explore and expand upon.

A strong theme is the use of projection upon the body, and cycling and layering it through various processes, just like with the gum bichromate and cyanotype works.

Common projections include my print and analogue works, old photographs, and reappropriated works.

In these works, I have reappropriated dusky maiden trope images by Leeteg, combined with cyanotypes and gum bichromates and photographed the resulting projections upon my sister Maria. This particularly speaks to the imposition of concepts like the dusky maiden trope upon actual bodies and lives.

From various audiovisual works.

Gum Bichromates.

Layering imagery of myself and my siblings, and reappropriated and reworked Leeteg imagery. Juxtaposing our real lived selves with tropes and stereotypes.

A common theme in my work is using old photos to explore memory.

This work is a reminiscence upon my mother (and in one image, my father). I discovered some old clothes and set out to find images of these clothes upon my mother. I then photographed myself in the clothes and placed them alongside the original image.

A commentary of memory, familial connection, and how artifacts such as clothes and photos can trigger this.

Various portraits and documentary shots from different projects.

Collage and digital collage are a favourite exploration of mine. As with much of my other work, I enjoy the layering of technique, material, mediums, and context.

In this instance, my photography is merged with scanned imagery including hand-drawn works.

For my Constructed Landscapes project, I used self-portraiture combined with Google Earth images of places I whakapapa to but may never have been, and construct fantastical worlds in which I can exist.

I enjoy the use of easily accessible technology for my creative projects, such as cellphone cameras, point and shoot cameras, internet and Google imagery, found and reappropriated images. I believe in the strength of the idea and concept over the quality of the gear used.

3 digital attempts at recreating a Polaroid Transfer, and one real one.

Black and white photograms - cameraless photography created in the darkroom.

Large scale digital collages - A0.

Layered digital works consisting of photography, drawings, found images, reappropriated images, old newspaper clippings, gum bichromate and cyanotype scans etc.

2015.

Bridging the suburbs of Cannon’s Creek and Whitby, photographic artists David Cook and Leala Falesuega have worked with students of two schools and their local communities to offer new views of each, and articulate their shared visions for the future – 2020. Building on Cook and Tim J Velling’s acclaimed Freeville School Project (TEZA 2013) Cook and Falesuega explore a collective documentary process with the merging of photographs, moving image, words and drawings, producing large public presentations of the work, culminating in its presentation in the windows of The Old McDonalds, 1 Cobham Court.

I used the gum bichromate process to turn David’s stunning portraits into colourful works for the children to fill with their hopes and dreams for Porirua.

More info: https://teza.org.nz/photography-of-exchange/