College of Creative Arts student achieves Olympic performance dream

Twenty-one year-old Creative Media Production student Zakea Page has achieved his lifelong dream of performing at an Olympic opening ceremony. He is in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the Winter Youth Olympic Games.

Zakea performed his unique artform, which blends sport and art, in front of thousands at Vaudoise Aréna on 9 January, making him the first person to design a Youth Olympic medal and perform at an opening ceremony of a Youth Olympic Games.

A passionate hockey player, he executes fast-paced, energetic painting performances using a hockey stick and a ball soaked in Chinese ink.

"My ultimate life ambition has been to perform at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, so to be able to achieve that is incredibly humbling,” he says.

Zakea Page, left, with International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach

Page won an international competition to design the medal for the Youth Olympic Games in April 2019. His design, Beauty in Diversity, which was rendered by fellow Massey student Ryan Ardern, beat more than 300 entries from 60 countries. As a result, he travelled to Lausanne for the games where he received the gold, silver and bronze medals from the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.

Zakea Page will begin his third year of a Bachelor of Creative Media Production degree at Massey's College of Creative Arts in Wellington this year.

"There's not much between sport and art. For me, it's more of a blur than different disciplines. There's not much that can make half the world cry and half the world cheer at once – sport has immense power, and so does art."

Zakea credits studying at Massey with helping him achieve his ambitions. “The peers, mentors and friendships I've developed at Massey have really helped me elevate my craft and myself as a person."