PROJECT BANABA
Katerina Teaiwa
About Katerina Teaiwa
Katerina Teaiwa is a Professor of Pacific Studies in the Gender, Media and Cultural Studies program, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. She has a PhD in Anthropology, a Masters in Pacific Islands Studies, and a Bachelor of Science. In 2022, Katerina won two national teaching excellence awards including Australian University Teacher of the Year.
She also has a background in contemporary Pacific dance and was co-founder of the Oceania Dance Theatre at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji with the late Seiuli Allan Alo. She writes, tweets and speaks regularly on Pacific regionalism, the arts, issues of historical and environmental justice, climate change, cultural policy, indigeneity, diaspora, displacement, colonial resistance, and representations of Pacific peoples.
Katerina is author of Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba. She is currently touring her research based multimedia exhibition Project Banaba commissioned by Carriageworks and curated by Yuki Kihara in 2017.
In 2019, Katerina & Yuki collaborated with Jess Mio to curate PB for MTG Hawke's Bay and in 2021/2022 with Te Uru Waitakere Gallery and Banaban communities in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Katerina’s film work has also been shown at
Para Site in Hong Kong and at the 2022
Kathmandu Triennale.
Katerina was born and raised in Fiji and is of Banaban,
I-Kiribati (Tabiteuean) and African American descent.
Learn more at:
https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/katerina-teaiwa