HT25 at HoMA: Edith Amituanai’s story of homecoming

In Gallery 14, as part of the Hawai‘i Triennial 2025, artist Edith Amituanai’s film Vaimoe fills a wall with images of Samoa—dramatic skies, lush landscapes, calm waters. You can watch it ten times and still want to watch it again, to catch new details and hear the narrator’s calm, lulling voice.  

The film follows Amituanai’s aunt, Vaimoe Tuilaepa, who returned to Samoa in 2023 after living in Hawai‘i, Alaska, and Nevada for more than 40 years. It is a story of homecoming, and one that Amituanai wanted to tell. 

“I’ve long been obsessed with migration, diaspora, questions of culture,” says Amituanai. “What makes us Samoan? What makes us Hawaiian? If we move to another state, are we still Native? How do you come home, to your ancestral homeland that has changed, you’ve changed, the people that you grew up with might not be there.” She cites her aunt and mother, who lived most of their lives outside of their homeland. The artist herself was born in New Zealand and lives in Auckland, and says she would like to move to Samoa in the future. 

Tuilaepa was in her sixties, living in Las Vegas, and finding it increasingly difficult to remain there, facing issues such as unaffordable health care. So she decided to move back to Samoa. Her sister, Amituanai’s mother, decided to leave New Zealand and join her in Samoa. For the artist, it was a chance to work with two people she loved. 

“I’ve known her story for a long time, so it was an excuse to make a film about it, and also include my mother,” says Amituanai. “My auntie is a character. She’s a strong woman and I knew she could hold the frame. She wants to be the star of her own story, which is what I look for—people, particularly women, who love to have their story told but have not been asked.” 

Tuilaepa mesmerizes the viewer as she tells her tale—she was born on a cacao farm and was passed from relative to relative after her father died when she was four. More tragedy follows. But Amituanai intersperses the heartache with scenes of joy and serenity as her aunt reconnects with her homeland and family. She stands in knee-deep water harvesting sea cucumbers, hosts a feast, makes a traditional headdress, and sits on the edge of an umu kuka (outdoor kitchen) singing a plaintive song about Samoa in the dark.  

Known for her photographic series documenting family communities (her work is included in the collections of Te Papa and the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki), Amituanai says the camera is her first love. But eventually, she says, she discovered stories “that needed to be told in film.” For Vaimoe, she worked with cinematographer Ralph Brown, and it was a fruitful match. “He knows the kind of frames that I like.” The result is a lyrical experience, with telling details such as feet under a church pew, some in slippers, others in trendy boots. In another scene, a spinning, blazing nifo oti (fire knife) of a Samoan fire dancer transitions into a ceiling fan whirring overhead. 

“No matter where you go in the world,” says Tuilaepa in the film, citing a proverb, “your heart returns to Samoa.” Vaimoe will resonate with anyone who has left home and feels that pull to the place where they belong. 

“When I make work I think about the audience,” says Amituanai. “A lot of what my auntie is talking about is the life she had here, in Hawai‘i, in Alaska, so I hope that islanders get to see it. Sometimes I think my work is very New Zealand oriented but this one I thought about islanders living in the diaspora, particularly the side of the Pacific Ocean.” 

Vaimoe is on view through May 4. Learn more about the Hawa‘i Triennial 2025 and its theme Aloha Nō.