Working across sculpture, installation and social practice, ‘Uhila reflects on skateboarding as both a formative experience and a language of freedom. For the artist, the skateboard ramp becomes a site of movement, risk and self-determination — a space where breaking rules, and sometimes breaking bones, is inseparable from learning how to navigate identity.

Born in Tonga and raised between Aotearoa and Australia, ‘Uhila describes a period of migration and adaptation that shaped his early life. Moving to Mildura as a teenager, he encountered new environments, schools and subcultures, moving between skateboarders, goths and punk scenes in an attempt to locate belonging within unfamiliar social landscapes.

Rather than aligning with a single identity, the artist describes this period as one of transformation through proximity — learning culture through contact, participation and observation. Skateboarding becomes both a practice and metaphor: a way of moving through different worlds while remaining in motion.

The exhibition Koe tenga tete to tete utu pe koia — translated as “the seed you sow, you will reap” — brings together personal history, migration and material experience. Installed within gallery space, the work invites participation and interaction, with visitors encouraged to add their own markings to the ramps, extending the work as a shared surface of expression.

Through this gesture, ‘Uhila positions the exhibition as an evolving social space, where authorship is distributed and identity is continually re-written through use.