The Development of Fafifi

Introduction & Background

The idea to create an island came in the second phase of MOMA's development which happened in 2022 when David Rose found confidence to fully embrace the idea of integrating gaming into the WIKIMOMA Community Arts Project. The initial phase in 2021 saw the development of the Protocols of MOMA with very basic, mostly low-key, role-playing elements; for example, (1) people who didn't consider themselves artists making artwork at proposed museum art workshops and contributing the works to the museum, or (2) participants playing the role of curator by assembling exhibitions to be shown in structures created according to the Protocols. When Princess Tahini of Patonga saw David flight simming, she got all excited and said she wanted to play being a flight attendant. That got David thinking about creating an addon to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 that could have cabin crew - it seemed only natural there to have somewhere special to fly to. So began the dreaming of the Island of Fafifi. The name Patonga was first given to this idea, but David became uncomfortable with it's potential to be related to the people of Tonga, so a fictitious name was invented - that in a rather camp way nodded to, and homaged, the Fa'afafine of Samoa (hoping quite ferociously that non of them would be offended).