Peter Sipeli has more than two decades of expertise in using and managing advocacy through artistic expression. He is an Arts Manager and supporter of the Spokenword arts movement in Fiji. Peter founded The Poetry Shop, Fiji six years ago and facilitates regular poetry events in Suva and poetry circle discussions with new and emerging Fijian writers.

He works as a gay activist, using storytelling as advocacy. Peter founded the online arts magazine

ArtTalk, Fiji that since its inception in 2017 has published 17 issues, showing arts in Fiji and across the region. From 2018 to 2020, ArtTalk, Fiji was incubated at   the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies alongside a podcast series, an audio component to ArtTalk.

Peter is passionate about developing the literary arts in Fiji and addressing prolonged silences in the art form. A SLAM poet with a large following, he is a champion of the revival of the literary movement in Fiji, working to provide spaces for new and emerging poets and artists to enable the framing of authentic local voices.

Peter has published four collections of poetry and travels extensively to regional festivals to showcase this work and to further networks and opportunities for poets and writers in Fiji. In 2016, Peter was among seven presenters who participated in the inaugural Tedx Suva in which he spoke on ‘Storytelling for Advocacy’.

Peter is the Creative Director of the Centre for the Arts, Suva, Fiji’s first artist-led and community-focused arts centre, through a US Post-COVID economic recovery grant that is set to begin in May 2022.