A new exhibition from a group of New Zealand artists has attempted to tackle what art and activism looks like through a Pacific lens.

And Then What?, at the St Paul Street Gallery, puts together 11 exhibits by Auckland and Wellington tertiary students, from the benign to the confronting.

For Lastman So'oula, it was an opportunity to express the backdrop to his father's death - the threats non-communicable diseases like diabetes pose to Pacific communities.

He's a spoken poet, but his moving image installation depicts a series of Auckland storefronts - a Chinese takeaways shop, a bottle store and a McDonalds - that to him are dangerous symbols of westernisation and colonisation.