You wouldn’t think we would leave you all just like that, did you? Surprise surprise, there’s one final secret project up our sleeves that we’ll be releasing on Tiktok across April 2024 to help feed your creative souls during our hiatus. After that, we will actually be on hiatus!

‘Build Your Own Universe’  is the love-child series dreamed up by members of the Pantograph Punch with our Queer decolonial co-conspirators at Āhua Collective, alongside Director Litia Tuiburelevu. As an organisation staffed by Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ individuals, we believe that stories and representations of Queer people of colour matter. Because our present, our futures, our communities and our histories matter.

Queer artists’ creative practices can build whole new universes for others to find themselves and find homes in. Queer art is something that all of us can draw strength and inspiration from in times of struggle. That’s the belief that awoke the seed of this project and from the basis to which we worked to realise the vision being released exclusively on Pantograph’s TikTok this coming month. 

In light of ongoing hate and attacks against Queer, Trans and Otherised bodies, we know that joy is our resistance, storytelling is our birthright and that as Queer people, we are innately expansive. The arts can connect us together and help us heal, our creativity brings forth new and ancient ways of being. We’ll drag the whole world along with us into new timelines, with or without the cults and their hateful spite.

It’s been an almost impossible task to capture our artists — we know there are depths and nuances stretching far beyond the stories and the moments shared in these clips. These videos are a prismatic glimpse into the complex, multilayered histories and cultures of QTBIPOC artists in Aotearoa who fluidly straddle many worlds. We know there are so, so many more of you out there making life-changing, earth-shaking work.

It’s been an almost impossible task to capture our artists — we know there are depths and nuances stretching far beyond the stories and the moments shared in these clips. These videos are a prismatic glimpse into the complex, multilayered histories and cultures of QTBIPOC artists in Aotearoa who fluidly straddle many worlds. We know there are so, so many more of you out there making life-changing, earth-shaking work.

Weaving together threads of Queer liberation, bountiful futures and utopian imaginations, Build Your Own Universe, casts a glimpse into the creative hearts, minds and art practices of some of the hottest, freshest QTBIPOC creatives living in Aotearoa. Each episode explores an artist’s unique relationship to their creativity, and how their creative expressions build space for their Queer and cultural kin.

We are excited for you to meet each of our artists, from the bubbling strength and music-video-cool of expansive creative Batanai Mashingaidze, the introspective reflections of zine-maker and kaupapa Māori researcher Hana Burgess, the kooky trickster brain of comedian and actor Janaye Henry, the pearlescent, joy-centred fantasy world of visionary hair artist Mary Dah Fairy, the fierce Hollywood Brown Girl glamour of comedian and actor Natalie Samy, the shape-shifting DIY waves of DJ and Musician Brown Boy Magik, the gaudy and joyful Leitī shrines of artist duo Sione Monū and Manu Vaea and the Cy-Bunga sci-fi electricity of artist and fashion stylist Peter Winq.

The project has been made possible through the collaboration of many hands and creative minds from our community and strongest allies.

The videos are brought to life by a talented team. We’re honoured to have them directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, the gun-tooting-video angel that’s made waves through Still Here (Re: News) and K-POLYS (The Spinoff). This project is produced by Sonya Milford on behalf of Āhua, Van Mei and Sherry Zhang on behalf of Pantograph Punch. We’ve had so many friends weave their way through this project, including our girlboss Production Coordinator Esther Leilua, the signature visuals of our Director of Photography Frances Carter, the creative vision, endless grit and 5000 days of pre-production from Art Designer Ally Lase and Art Assist Cinta Yasmeen, the genius makeup artistry of Tallulah McLean, Māhia Te Kore’s fluent hands-on lighting assist, the trained eye of Peter Seeto on fashion styling, Apela Bell’s beautiful stills photography, the endless patience and love of story from our Editor Onehou Strickland, the magic touch of Bryson Naik for graphic design and otherworldly visual effects, Devan Narsai for the aesthetic wash in colour grading, and the world-building sound of composer Nikolai Talamahina to connect these universes together. 

The series is funded by Every Voice, a co-funded initiative from TikTok, Screen Australia and NZ On Air. We have also received love and launch support from Burnett Foundation, thank you both for making this project possible.Build Your Own Universe is incredibly dear to our hearts, we hope you enjoy, give love and share as widely as the oceans.

Watch the series on TikTok here

Follow the series on our IG here