Raymond Sagapolutele

Sagapolutele was born in the South Auckland suburb of Ōtāhuhu in 1971, and he has family links to the villages of Fatuvalu and Saluafata in Samoa.[1] His early years were spent in Invercargill and Waikato, before the family returned to live in Manurewa in 1980.[1] From 2003, he worked as a staff photographer for the publications Back to Basics and Rip It Up, as well as regular submissions to The New Zealand Herald and Metro magazine.[2] In 2019, he graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Master of Visual Arts degree.[3][4]

For Sagapolutele, the camera has become an important part of his practice as a Samoan-born New Zealander to reconnect his art to his Samoan heritage and the history of the Pacific.[3] Sagapolutele uses skulls as a representation of ancestors from a Samoan perspective, and seeks to challenge western perceptions of skulls.[5] He wants to educate people about how Samoans view the skeletal remains of love ones, as for Pacific people, they are respected and dealt with in different ways by various cultures. The use of skulls is an important part of Sagapolutele's practice.[6]

Sagapolutele is a founding member of the ManaRewa arts collective based at the Nathan Homestead that supports and educates the local arts community in South Auckland.[7]