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Sione Tuívailala Monū,Threads Across the Sky, 2025
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TitleSione Tuívailala Monū,Threads Across the Sky, 2025 
DescriptionSione Tuívailala Monū (Aotearoa, Australia, Tonga)
Threads across the sky, 2025
Plastic beads, foam board, glitter board, paper
Here in Waikirikiri Selwyn, we’re familiar with dramatic clouds. In Threads across the sky by Sione Tuívailala Monū, colourful clouds and their vibrant raindrops float through Te Ara Ātea. They fill the atrium space above our Community Lounge, stretching up to the first-floor mezzanine and across to our Young Adult Collection.
Clouds are a frequent symbol in Sione’s artwork. This formation was made with the cycle of water in mind. In our district, braided rivers are fed by the rain and snow that falls on our mountains. When making this artwork for Te Ara Ātea, Sione focused on the way in which water moves across this whenua, with the blue and red clouds in the centre of the group as an acknowledgement of our waterways.
Sione’s beading practice is born from the customary crafting practices of the Tongan diaspora, experienced while growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. They watched women in their family make customary kafa (waist adornment), adding non-traditional colourful beads to create highly intricate patterns, as well as floral shapes that reference tropical flowers native to Tonga.
This innovation and adoption of a new material in Tongan craft is the foundation for Sione’s joyful use of beading in Threads across the sky, brightening Te Ara Ātea as they shimmer and sparkle in the sun.DateMay 2025 - February 2026PhotographerSam Towse
DescriptionSione Tuívailala Monū (Aotearoa, Australia, Tonga) Threads across the sky, 2025
Plastic beads, foam board, glitter board, paper
Here in Waikirikiri Selwyn, we’re familiar with dramatic clouds. In Threads across the sky by Sione Tuívailala Monū, colourful clouds and their vibrant raindrops float through Te Ara Ātea. They fill the atrium space above our Community Lounge, stretching up to the first-floor mezzanine and across to our Young Adult Collection.
Clouds are a frequent symbol in Sione’s artwork. This formation was made with the cycle of water in mind. In our district, braided rivers are fed by the rain and snow that falls on our mountains. When making this artwork for Te Ara Ātea, Sione focused on the way in which water moves across this whenua, with the blue and red clouds in the centre of the group as an acknowledgement of our waterways.
Sione’s beading practice is born from the customary crafting practices of the Tongan diaspora, experienced while growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. They watched women in their family make customary kafa (waist adornment), adding non-traditional colourful beads to create highly intricate patterns, as well as floral shapes that reference tropical flowers native to Tonga.
This innovation and adoption of a new material in Tongan craft is the foundation for Sione’s joyful use of beading in Threads across the sky, brightening Te Ara Ātea as they shimmer and sparkle in the sun.
DateMay 2025 - February 2026PhotographerSam TowseConnections
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Written ByErin Lee
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Sione Tuívailala Monū,Threads Across the Sky, 2025 (May 2025 - February 2026). Selwyn Stories, accessed 18/10/2026, https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/6989