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, teaches 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. 

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Katerina is author of "Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba" and numerous publications about Banaba and Oceania. She is currently touring her research based multimedia exhibition Project Banaba, originally commissioned by Carriageworks, and curated by Yuki Kihara.

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. From 2023-24 Project Banaba was shown by Bishop Museum and co-curated by Yuki Kihara, Joy Enomoto and Healoha Johnston. In 2025, Chau Chak Wing Museum hosted Dance Protest inspired by Project Banaba featuring Katerina’s daughter, Tearia Teaiwa Mortimer, and objects from the Beth Dean collection. 

 

Katerina’s film work “Mine Lands: for Teresia” has also been shown at Para Site in Hong Kong in 2020, the 2022 Kathmandu Triennale and at the University of Queensland art gallery in 2024. 
 
Katerina was born and raised in Fiji and is of Banaban (Tabiang, Tabwewa), I-Kiribati (Tabiteuea Meang) and African American descent.

 

Learn more at:

https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/katerina-teaiwa