Lia is an artist who hails from Samoa and the Luiseño nation of Southern California. She is a Creative Producer and Community Arts Cultural Development practitioner who delivers community empowered multi- artform projects with Pacific Islander, culturally diverse and Indigenous Australian communities across region and remote contexts. Lia has been highly successful in delivering dynamic programming across community cultural festivals and projects that focus on community empowerment, capacity building, and intergeneration exchange across art forms.
Lia is the co-creator of the global indigenous space Ngamumu (For Mothers) for mothers and their babies during the first 1000 days. Ngamumu provides a safe cultural space for families to develop cultural resources and learn about indigenous parenting methodologies that best support their baby’s holistic development.
Lia is the 2020 recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts Community Arts & Cultural Development Fellowship, which recognises her ongoing work in remote and regional communities and is for a two-year program of research and development and delivery of arts and cultural practices that support women in the first 1000 days.
Lia lives in Cairns and is reinvigorating and reimagining ancestral practices to support her family’s and community’s health and wellbeing.