Indigenous SciFi and Aotearoa Futurism: Dr. Gina Cole & Dan Taipua
Explore space, time, and technology in science fiction through indigenous lenses with award-winning author Dr Gina Cole (Black Ice Matter; Na Viro) and writer, critic and producer, Dan Taipua.
Dr. Gina Cole is an award-winning author of Fijian, Scottish and Welsh descent. Her collection Black Ice Matter won the Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book Fiction in 2017. Her science fiction fantasy novel Na Viro (Huia, 2022) is a work of Pasifikafuturism following sisters wayfinding through sea and space. Awarded the 2023 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency in 2023, she is currently working on the second book in her Turukawa Trilogy.
Dan Taipua (Waikato-Tainui) is a writer and critic working in Tāmaki Makaurau. His interests cross through art history, popular culture and Te Ao Māori with a particular focus on futurism and imagined worlds. In 2015, Dan Taipua and Sophie Wilson produced the documentary Aotearoa Futurism for RNZ Music, interviewing Māori and Pasifika artists whose works explore the boundaries of technology and time. This work has inspired further study of indigenous futurisms by scholars and creators alike and continues to shape Taipua's own critical practice.
This talk is in association with our sci-fi exhibition 'Other Worlds' and the 'Tāmaki Untold' series. Exhibition is open from 19 February to 2 August 2025 in the Heritage Gallery, Level 2, Central City Library / Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero.
Explore selected works by Dr Gina Cole and Dan Taipua along with some of the books, authors and works mentioned in this episode – all available either at Auckland Council Libraries or online.
Na Viro by Gina Cole. Huia Publishers, 2022
Wayfinding Pasifikafuturism : an indigenous science fiction vision of the ocean in space : a thesis by Gina Cole. Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand, 2020
https://mro.massey.ac.nz/items/21b05630-28b2-4d93-85e9-f7156be8f0d9
Aotearoa Futurism Part One: Space Maori and Astronesians - podcast by Dan Taipua and Sophie Wilson, RNZ Music, 2015
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/nat-music/audio/201782605/aotearoa-futurism-part-one
Aotearoa Futurism Part Two: South Pacific Futurists podcast by Dan Taipua and Sophie Wilson, RNZ Music, 2015
Remains to be Told: Dark Tales from Aotearoa edited by Lee Murray. Clan Destine Press, 2023
Walking the Stars: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction edited by Grace Dillon Star Waka by Robert Sullivan Auckland University Press, 1999
The Routledge Book of CoFuturisms edited by Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay. 1st edition, 2023. Full text available via Open Access with Taylor and Francis under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND.
How To Loiter in a Turf War by Coco Solid. Penguin Random House NZ, 2022
Island Time: South Pacific Futurism From a Contemporary Aotearoa Perspective by Jessica “Coco” Hansell published in The Funambulist, Issue 24: Futurisms, 2019
Navigator by Che Fu (Music CD) Sony, 2001
Lisa Reihana: Emissaries by Lisa Reihana. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2017
Goddess Muscle by Dr Karlo Mila Huia Publishers, 2020
Waerea by Mokotron (Music LP). Stebbing Recording Studio, 2024
Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman. Hachette Australia, 2017
How Māui Defied the Goddess of Death by Peter Gossage. 3rd edition, Puffin Books, 2012 You Are Here by Peata Larkin and Whiti Hereaka. Massey University Press, 2025
New Zealand