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Vasemaca

@colourmefiji.bsky.social

163 followers 90 following 579 posts

Optimistic Fijian artist + writer. Dreamtime n Recovery. Mother of Girl Child and Vunilagi Vou.

Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Popping up with some textiles, prints and eclectic bits and pieces, tonight from 4-9pm at Celebrate Aotearoa, 3/260 Apirana Ave, Glen Innes, East #Auckland

✨ G.I Matariki fireworks at 9pm tonight 🎇

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Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand's avatar Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand @livingwageaotearoa.bsky.social
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The Living Wage means thriving, not just surviving.

The 2024/25 Living Wage Rate is $27.80.

For accredited Living Wage Employers it comes into effect on 1 September 2024. #Kikorangi

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House of Boom's avatar House of Boom @houseofboomnz.bsky.social
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Hey Wellington! If you still haven't got your hands on Boom Gin, Mothers Ruined are doing a tasting this Saturday at Regional Wines & Spirits by the Basin Reserve, from 1pm-4pm. Go along! Get the gin! Try the others! They're all good! (Mine is the best) Or buy online www.mothersruinedgin.com/shop

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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All good now, just needed to understand a bit more about what’s going on. Knowledge is powerful!

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Yesterday morning I waddled out of the Women's Health ward at Middlemore and watched the sun rise over #SouthAuckland. It was beautiful seeing the way the fog wrapped around the trees and buildings. Nothing like a sunrise to make all the gratitude in your body rise to the surface.

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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I’m so grateful for health workers today. Why are they not the best paid people in society. Make it make sense.

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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I did spend the dawn of Matariki in the Middlemore Hospital ED waiting room but it allowed me watch the TVOne Matariki coverage and it was so beautiful ✨💓✨ It’s amazing how far we have come as a country… Bloody Nigel is everywhere 😁

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Marie Brennan's avatar Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social
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A conversation on our Discord has prompted me to say again: remember, y'all, what really sells books is not the author talking about their work, but *readers* talking about it. Word of mouth drives far more sales than advertising or any other engine. So if you loved a book, tell your friends!

17 replies 424 reposts 1302 likes

Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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When my sister studied in Bristol in the early 90s, we'd visit her and go to the sites. I remember my brother-in-law telling me how many people committed suicide off the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 75m above water height. A terrifying core memory.

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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A group of misfits, all with their own trauma and spicy social skills, is a bit like the bonds we feel when artists find other artists, and make exhibitions.. it's an unconventional community bonded by something that's mostly not crack cocaine, but something else powerful...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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I've been wiped out with a monthly episode of pure financial stress just digesting my physical wellbeing, and when screens don't exacerbate the driving headache, I've been watching "The Outlaws"... it's very good, and season two made me cry more than I was comfortable with.

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𝕯𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖘™ 's avatar 𝕯𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖘™ @dallasnz.bsky.social
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Hey all, The Tino Rangatiratanga Flag badge is back on TM. This is a parent-led fundraising initiative for Te Whanau o Patiki - the bilingual unit at Te Kura o Patiki - Rosebank Primary. Kikorangi

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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A free read on Patreon, if you’re interested in some reflections of the endurance of making a monomono pani, an opportunity to remember the legacy of @efeso.bsky.social, and the ways this work has shifted my ideas around the potential & limitations of a gallery.

www.patreon.com/posts/art-as...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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I’m literally just airing the internal dialogue that vexes me all the time, because being on the benefit isn’t fkn #goals #livingthedream, and ideally I wouldn’t have to leave parental relationship, but I will return to working longer hours, as soon as I can, but I just don’t understand how… NOW

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Alternative living arrangements that I’ve had before, like living with another solo mum and her child, was good for the little bits of childcare that made life a bit easier, but it’s still not childcare-childcare.. it’s favours, that need to be repaid. Not the same.

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Time for an exit strategy from Tāmaki Makaurau 🤪 Where does the extra money come from?? OnlyFans? Selling organs??

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Maybe the idea is that I just move back to where my family is.. so I can maximise on ‘free’ childcare so I can get a full time job. The thing is, I got all my qualifications in NZ and they don’t really mean shit where I come from lol

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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… maybe I’m just not getting it? But literally who will parent my child if I give it up to go and earn not enough money for us to live off? Who washes her clothes and hangs them out, and makes her lunch, and listens to her stories, and picks her up from school?! Who does those things if I don’t?

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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... I'd like to understand how, when applying for the few jobs that are available pits me against folx who can work flexible hours (beyond school hours), and I'm hustling as much as possible to scrape rent together every month, and domestic labour IS LABOUR, I'm still considered unproductive...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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... mostly full-time work that I'm qualified or suited to would require kiddo to be in before & after school care, the cost of which would make a full-time income basically the same as the Solo Parent Subsidy. And the cost is really just paid by child, who loses out on a parent. So...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Reading about the need for beneficiaries to be more action-oriented about finding work... most jobs that enable parents who need to work in school hours are in schools, where I have no experience + quals, other part-time jobs are shift-based and I have no family support...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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My torso is too long for this gorgeous thing. Beautiful quality construction, wish I could enjoy it but a Sharkskin size 22 is not the size 22 for me.

Never worn in water. $160 buy now. Originally NZ$260.

www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplac...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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The revolution will be posted, meme’d and emoji’d

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Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand's avatar Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand @livingwageaotearoa.bsky.social
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The Living Wage considers basic expenses, and gives breathing room for rest, activities, or saving for a rainy day. It’s good for collective wellbeing, and our economy.

Read more about the 2024/25 Living Wage rate here: www.livingwage.org.nz/lw24
#NZpol

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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This one-day painting was particularly cathartic to make on the nationwide day of activation called to demonstrate solidarity with the Toitū Te Tiriti movement on 30 May 2024.

For sale here if anyone wants to help me pay rent this month 🫠 vunilagivou.com/product/toit...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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This so depressing. I applied for a job a few weeks ago to do 10hrs a week on minimum wage in retail and the employer said they got over 500 applications in 5 days.

Applicants say job hunting like 'The Hunger Games' as labour market tightens www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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"... inhabited by a tribe of telepathic cats." is the surprising end of a sentence I needed to read today.

#NowReading

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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The photo for this post has been flagged as Adult Content lol Too. Much. FLESH! This is a beautiful photo by Vasa Gray, photographing her mum, Julia Mage'au Gray and Aunty Mikes mark my chest in Birkdale, North Auckland, 2018.

More on #MelanesianMarks here: www.sunameke.com/melanesianma...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Funding outcome day is always charged, kind of like the day before a tattoo appointment. The anticipation, the bracing for pain, the hope for a new outlook. When that email arrives, the tension is broken, and then normally followed by tears of relief, or tears of despair. 🌺 Latest on Patreon 👇🏽

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David Marshall 's avatar David Marshall @illdave.bsky.social
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I can't remember a tech campaign this relentless.

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Auckland Women's Centre's avatar Auckland Women's Centre @akwomenscentre.bsky.social
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Trans women are women and gender queerness is not a threat to anything except the patriarchy.

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Love this virtual exhibition tour of "The Healer Stones of Kapaemahu" about "the past and contemporary meanings of four large stones that were long ago placed on Waikīkī Beach to honor four māhū, extraordinary individuals of dual male & female spirit, who brought healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi"

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Tash 🍉's avatar Tash 🍉 @tashmahal.bsky.social
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Reading this as-per-usual-bang-on-top-tier-truth-telling piece by the inimitable Tina Ngata reminded me of the current Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations -a man who helped Don Brash write his Orewa speech- saying that colonisation was a good thing for Māori
e-tangata.co.nz/history/dism...

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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The artists in Pati’s cute creative cheer squad spent the day mostly eating snacks, making cultural and political observations, discussing witchcraft and death, creative projects and occasionally yelling “YESSSS PATIIIII!! FINISH STRONGGGG!!” 🤪 #range

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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They represented a small Pacific Island-owned gym in Papatoetoe, which doesn’t specialise in cross fit, but looking at this tournament.. I see cross fit is certainly a lifestyle brown people enjoy. The music, yelling, human endurance and sweat was certainly… a vibe. *david attenborough voice*

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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Yesterday my strong, clever friend Pati competed for the first time in a cross fit tournament and it was a multi-sensory education for me! So much Lycra & sweat & endurance! Pati squatted 8 times with a weight of over 90kg at the end 😲 Him & teammate Nahni were so impressive to his artist peers 😎

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Vasemaca's avatar Vasemaca @colourmefiji.bsky.social
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*clutches pearls* I live in South Auckland Ponsonby makes me feel very unsafe…

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Scotti Mann's avatar Scotti Mann @scottimann.bsky.social
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Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living. Artists deserve to make art for a living.

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