F.O.L.A. [AKL] Mini-Interviews
F.O.L.A. [AKL] is a space for Experimental and Live Art by the misfits, punks and menaces of the world in Tāmaki Makaurau. Returning for a four night midwinter festival from the 11-14 June, F.O.L.A takes over Basement Theatre with performances, exhibitions, rituals and dance floors by fearless artists.
Rat World features three mini-interviews with some of the exciting artists at F.O.L.A this year!
Sung Hwan Bobby Park - BTM Voices of Vessels
Who are you and what do you do?
I am Korean baby who a ‘lil grown. I am Aotearoa baby. I am a gay baby, art baby, etc..
Can you talk me through your show at F.O.L.A.? What’s something you would say about this work that isn’t in the publicity copy?
I first fisted clay in 2023 and that got me so much more curious about my relationship with clay. I make sculptures with clay and in this exchange of information between my body and the lump of clay, I feel the process is so rich opportunities. One of my questions was ‘how do I bring about my intersectionalities of being an artist, this artist, to the work?'.'
What is the BTM series?
BTM stands for 방탄모 bnag tan mo or ‘bulletproof helmet’ in Korean. BTM is also short for ‘bottom’. BTM also one letter away from BTS. I am signalling a lot with BTM.
BTM has been through many iterations - how does Voices of Vessels expand on your exploration of creation and sexuality?
BTM started as a series of ceramic helmet sculptures to talk about the impact of homophobic policies like Korean military law article 92-6 and how laws like that render the protection and identity afforded to gay men fragile, like having a dinner plate over your head rather than an invincible headgear. I want to continue expanding the BTM series until the article 92-6 is eliminated. Maybe I will open a gay night club called 92-6.
When I first saw BTM in 2024, I was struck by how vulnerable and evocative the performance felt - how do you feel during the performance? What have been your personal discoveries after each BTM iteration?
What I discovered and hold close to my heart is how much I feel vulnerable during the performance. I feel soft, wet, hot, excited. I love how I can feel so vulnerable and when I am done, I carry that attitude into my life, absorbing information of my surroundings.
What should audiences expect from BTM if they’ve never seen your work before?
Expect the wonders and grace of clay sculpture making process, 노래방 karaoke energy and my ass.
Grecco Romank & Copper MaeSteal - Glory Whole
Who are you and what do you do?
GRECCO: We are Grecco Romank, a three piece live electronic band. A cross between heavy euro-trash dance and operatic dungeon rave. In our five years we’ve played any and every stage we’ve come across - infecting culture with our dark but dumb and fun pounding breaks - from being nominated as best Alternative act in the 2023 AMA’s through to winning SRN most played single and winning supports for fellow international freak-heros Health and Myyki Blanco.
COPPER: I’m Copper MaeSteal, a creative producer, storyteller, and the visionary behind MaeSteal. Originating as a drag queen turned human-like creature, I’ve morphed from the innocence of a little boy into the surreal nightmare of professionalism. I produce immersive events, create both living and non-living art and design, model and muse, concept and capture, sculpt and perform. Having led projects like the closing event for New Zealand Fashion Week and events for Auckland Pride and Raynham Park, my work highlights conceptual and individual perspectives while staying true to queer history, and beautiful bizarreness.
Can you talk me through your show at F.O.L.A.? What’s something you would say about this work that isn’t in the publicity copy?
GRECCO: In collab with Copper MaeSteal, we’ve found a way to deconstruct our live show, bringing a multi-sensory fever nightmare to the basement. The audience is surrounded by stimuli as we ask them to enter the Glory Whole of our shared hive mind with Copper MaeSteal acting as a sleep-paralysis demon conductor.
COPPER: Our F.O.L.A. event Glory Whole is truly one of a kind. With Grecco Romank’s produced sound as the core, we have built a multi-visual world through set layout, prop design and personal performance movement that feels like watching a sweet old lady’s house go up in flames, hauntingly beautiful, deeply intimate and disturbingly overwhelming. What isn’t in the publicity is how much of this work is about vulnerability, perfectionism and human validation. It’s about losing control, becoming the obscure monster of a perfect being. We are inviting the audience to sit with the discomfort of spectacle, filth and transformation disguised as glamour.
What was it like collaborating with each other? How did you land on this concept together?
GRECCO: We previously worked with Copper on our music video for ‘Human Bin’ from our latest album ‘Arts Colony’ where we attempted to visually manifest the sludge of whispered kinks and sewer thoughts, and if we had the funds it would be fun to collaborate on more live shows with Copper. Although we thrive in the raw context of live music venue showbiz - we also have an active visual imagination and feel there should more cross pollination in the arts (Grecco also has produced it’s own perfumes, candles and recently a 300 page arts book with 40+ collaborators).
COPPER: It has been a dream from hell. Working with Grecco Romank in the past meant we could keep the grotesque flesh-like ball rolling. When we began this project, they invited me over for a creative chat and the concept started to ooze out from there. We began with the idea of obscured perfectionism and from that point the canvas started to paint itself. Having their full discography to pull from felt like being a Berlin boy with every nightclub in the world at my fingertips and from there it all just commenced.
What connections have you found between your creative practices and processes?
GRECCO: Copper had a brilliant conceit that took our otherworldly music, putting bones and flesh to its aura. Copper directed and playlisted a range of our music to these brilliant minimal, but transgressive performance pieces that could only exist in a festival like F.O.L.A.
COPPER: Working with Grecco Romank, the connections between our creative practices are endless. Our art forms share a large overlap in art history, raw aesthetics, and political positioning. There’s a constant dialogue between grunge and glamour, personal narrative and collective unrest. Our work holds reasoning that resists easy definition and politics that bleed through form and texture. Honestly, there’s too much to untangle fully here, but at its core, it’s a shared desire to make the grotesque feel intimate and the beautiful feel dangerous.
Audiences are encouraged to move freely throughout the space - what can they expect to experience while there?
GRECCO: Harmonious pop melodics underscored by brutalist techno, in a 360 blood rave cavern occupied by the gorgeous but commanding Copper. Mime-surgery, prosthetics, live camera feeds into the sewers of clubs around the world. Live cardio fitness.
COPPER: I love when people come to one of my events with no expectations. Expect everything and nothing. Expect to experience an immersive show yet also expect to be the show. You watch us and we will watch you.
What do you hope for the audience to question about their life and existence after viewing this performance?
GRECCO: Why does my face not feel like my face? If I was really me then why did I see me walking out of this same show and why am I following myself into this large limousine? Why are the letters on my phone all written out in glyphs? Why can’t I wake up from this?
COPPER: Question everything. How do you perceive your own flesh and the flesh of others? How much of perfectionism is authentic and how much is just a product sold to you? What is your personal relationship to validation and consumption? When is enough truly enough, and when will you feel whole?
Moe Laga - Fetū x Fetu’u
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Moe Laga aka Thehoodsupreme I’m an interdisciplinary artist, an OG member of the FAFSWAG arts collective, and the overall House Mother and creative director of the illustrious House of Coven-Aucoin. My practice is rooted in performance, ritual, and the body as both archive and altar. I exist across mediums and dimensions creating work that’s part séance, part rebellion. My work is about embodiment, transformation, survival, and storytelling especially through a queer, Moana, fa’afafine lens.
Can you talk me through your show at F.O.L.A.? What’s something you would say about this work that isn’t in the publicity copy?
Fetū x Fetu’u is not just a show, it’s a sacred offering. A cosmic unravelling. A spiritual rave for the ancestors. On the surface, it’s about duality stars (fetū) and curses (fetu’u) but deeper than that, it’s me standing in my own fire, letting the ashes tell stories. What you won’t find in the copy is that this work is also about erotic grief. About holy rage. About calling in my younger selves, my muses, my ghosts, and letting them take centre stage. It’s part mass, part funeral procession, part power surge. It’s not always neat but it’s real. It’s alive.
You have a really interdisciplinary practice. How has this come together in Fetū x Fetu’u? What are you particularly excited about in putting on this performance?
In Fetū x Fetu’u, everything I’ve ever learned comes together from theatre and movement, sound design, and indigenous storytelling. There’s no hierarchy between forms it all bleeds and breathes together. The set is a living altar, the costume is a weapon, the lighting is a spirit guide. What excites me most is creating a space where nothing is fixed. Where I get to shape shift in real time. Where I get to move from softness to savagery and bring the audience with me. It’s not about perfection it’s about presence.
What is the significance of South Auckland in your work? How do you embody this location/space in Fetū x Fetu’u?
South Auckland raised me. It’s where I learned to survive, to perform, to love, to hustle, and to hold my people down. The women, the queers, the rebels, the church mothers, the streets all of them live in my work. South Auckland is in my accent, my attitude, my swagger, my resilience. In Fetū x Fetu’u, I bring that raw Southside mana into every corner of the stage. I carry that world with me; the beauty and the chaos and I wear it like armour. Like a crown. I’m not just representing it, I am it.
I love the phrase “pop cultural witchery”! How does this play a part in your show?
Pop cultural witchery is my magic system. It’s how I remix the sacred and the pop. It’s channeling femme icons as divine archetypes. In Fetū x Fetu’u, I use pop references not just as flavour, but as tools of spell casting and storytelling. It’s not surface, it’s spell work. Glamour becomes ritual. Shade becomes scripture. When I say witchery, I mean I’m conjuring power from all the places colonisers told us were unworthy the club, the runway, the hood, the fem queen mouth. That’s where the magic lives.
What do you hope audiences take away from Fetū x Fetu’u?
I hope people leave feeling shifted. Like something ancient touched them even if they can’t name it. I want them to see the beauty in contradictions: light and shadow, sensuality and sorrow, rage and reverence. I hope they see fa’afafine not as spectacle but as sacred. And I hope they walk away knowing that performance can be church, ceremony, and confession all at once. I’m not asking them to understand everything just to feel it. To witness. To remember.
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Catch F.O.L.A [Akl] from the 11-14 June at Basement Theatre - Take a look at the full programme and grab your tickets here!