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I am Angela Tiatia. I am a visual
artist based in Sydney.

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My mother is from Samoa and she's part of the great Pacific migration
wave of the 1960s from the Pacific Islands to Auckland.

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And a lot of her and her generation, they work the
factories and worked multiple jobs, long hours.

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My mother's wish for me was for
me to not work in a factory.

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And so I did that. I went
and studied a Bachelor of Commerce and

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I just felt this huge sadness within me. Like
I wasn't becoming the person that I

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wanted to be. And so I went to art school.

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Yeah, she'll come to the exhibitions and she'll stand
there and then at the end she'll come and

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in my ear, she'd go, so when you're
going to become a lawyer?

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And then I'm like, um,

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I'm an artist.

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A lot of my work is channeling
that feminine energy,

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that strength within femininity

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is the quality that I'm really trying to draw out

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because that is the essence
of what I grew up with.

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what I grew up with, with this really
strong, powerful woman.

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Yeah, it's, I see a lot of her in my
works.

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It's the essence of her.

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Hibiscus rosa sinensis is the very first work
that I had filmed as a professional artist.

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So my portrait that's on display at the moment is
my very first moving image work that I made,

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once I had decided I'm an artist. That's it.

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I'm going to be a professional artist. This
is my profession. This is my career.

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And it just is a very layered work.

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It says a lot. It says a lot from where I
come from personally, my own journey,

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from being in front of the camera,
to being behind the camera,

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to then being in front of the camera,

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and what that enormous journey
has done

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to my own gaze, what I'm giving to the camera.

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It was so transformational.

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It had gone from demure and placating,

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whatever you want me to do, I'm
going to do it, to no more.

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This is me, and I'm doing what I want to do.

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That's why the work is one minute
long, because it's so simple,

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but the gesture is so powerful.

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It means a lot if you understand
the context of everything

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in terms of the way Pasifika females
have been represented,

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historically.

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By the time that camera was on my face
in that moment, I was just fed up.

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I was done.

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I was done!

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And I was like, boom, this is my power
and my strength from now on.

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This is me, but you're getting it.

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Yeah.

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And so in that moment of time was
pure, feminine, rage,

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anger, power, determination,
resilience and strength.

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I was giving it all down the barrel of the camera.