INFO
| Name | Abigail Dell'Avo (she/her) |
| Also known as | Abi |
| Country of Birth | Netherlands |
| Place of Residence | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland |
| Ethnicities | Filipino, Dutch, Italian, Spanish |
| Artform | Visual arts |
| Decades Active | 2020s |
ABOUT
Abigail Dell’Avo is a photographer and community event organiser based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She is currently working as a programmes and outreach coordinator at Studio One Toi Tū, with a focus on creating more spaces for BIPOC and queer folk. In this role, she reaches out to various communities and helps organise programmes, exhibitions and workshops for festivals and events such as Auckland Pride and Matariki to be held inside the gallery.
Born to a Filipino mother and a Dutch father, Dell'Avo lived in the Netherlands before relocating to Waiuku in Tāmaki Makaurau at the age of five. Dell'Avo received a Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship from AUT and graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in communications and business.
After graduating, Dell'Avo worked as an organiser for Migrant Zine Collective, facilitating various workshops and events such as Stop Asian Hate and Asian Women Talk About, and since 2020, has worked as a volunteer with the Green Party, photographing events and taking part in postcard writing, phone calling and door knocking.
Dell'Avo began her photography career in 2022, shooting exhibition openings for Studio One. She has since worked on projects for Metro, Viaduct Harbour, Ensemble, Public Library Showroom, Auckland Zinefest, Goldi Knitwear, Baobei Label, YWCA, Aunty’s House, Sam Low, and Chlöe Swarbrick.
Dell'Avo describes her photography practice as an extension of community building: centred around meeting, collaborating and storytelling with the queer BIPOC community. An example of this is her project with the South Asian arts collective Aunty's House for Metro, through which she is able to “tell someone's story in an authentic way". For Dell'Avo, authenticity means the accurate representation of voice and identity: involving them in the storytelling process, allowing them to shape the narrative and make decisions about editing, tone, and content.
LINKS
Key works / presentations
2024 – Aunty's House, Metro
2023 – The Killing, Metro
2023 – Nympho World, Neck of the Woods, event photographer
2023 – Goldi Knitwear campaign
2023 – Rogue Aotearoa, Ensemble
2023 – Hello Ambitious: Asian women in business, Ensemble
2023 – NZ Fashion Week, Ensemble
2023 – Drag for Democracy, Chlöe Swarbrick, event photographer
