Apulu Pati Tyrell is an acclaimed interdisciplinary visual artist and performer based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa / New Zealand. He is of Samoan descent, from the villages of Faleasiʻu and Fagaliʻi. Tyrell holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from the Manukau Institute of Technology and is a co-founder of the pioneering LGBTQI+ Pasifika arts collective, FAFSWAG.

Fāgogo is a 9-minute moving image work that conceptualizes the traditional Samoan art of oral storytelling as a restorative, decolonizing practice. The film centers on urban Pacific queer and trans identities, linking various islands across the Pacific to reclaim ancestral sovereignty. Through collaborative community storytelling, Tyrell creatively reinstates gender-diverse Pacific Islanders from Aotearoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Samoa, and Tonga to positions of cultural and spiritual authority. The visual process strips away Western colonial frameworks through high-contrast, atmospheric cinematography and ceremonial costuming. The film features shape-shifting, confrontational figures who operate seamlessly between physical realities and spiritual realms. Fāgogo creates a sacred, sovereign screen space. It forcefully rejects external voyeurism, returning agency and sacred power directly to queer brown bodies.