ethKnowcentrix
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Museums Inside the Artist, 10 Sep 10 Oct 2009
Shigeyuki Kihara - George Nuku - Rosanna Raymond - Lisa
Reihana
The first exhibition of its kind in London, ethKnowcentrix - Museums Inside the Artist features mixed
media and performance work exploring the idea of the ethnographic gaze, by four leading artists from
Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the Pacific Islands.
Visions of exotic beauty and mystery have dominated British perceptions of the Pacific Islands since the
time of Captain Cook. Fuelled by the fantastic narratives of returning explorers, anthropologists and
artists, this exotic imagery provided the basis for museum displays and underpinned the emerging
discipline of ethnography (the classification of people and cultures). Yet while the Europeans were busy
imagining ‘Noble Savages’ and ‘Dusky Maidens’, the Pacific Islanders were looking back at them,
negotiating, exchanging and sharing goods and ideas on their own terms. This exhibition reconsiders
the spaces of meeting, looking and representing across cultures, and explores how the ethnographic
gaze has been reciprocated and challenged. With acerbic wit, these works promise to radically subvert
the European legacy of museum classification, reclaim popular imagery of Pacific Island culture, and
offer fresh perspectives for a shared global future.
Shigeyuki Kihara is a multimedia and performance artist who uses photography to explore themes of
representation, spirituality, performativity, and gender. In her photographic series Vava‘u: Tales from
Ancient Samoa, she enacts characters from the Samoan creation stories, composing the prints as
parodies of the kitsch genre of velvet paintings popular in the USA in the 1960s, which sexualised Pacific
Island women. By reclaiming control over the construction of the image, Kihara presents herself as both
the subject and the object to be viewed, tapping the potential of the self-portraiture medium to challenge
and subvert the expectations of the viewer. These expectations are further confounded by the
knowledge that Kihara belongs to the liminal gender space of the fa’afafine, biological males who live as
women, a role that is well accepted by Samoan society. Born in Samoa, but currently based in Aotearoa
(New Zealand), Kihara became, in 2008, the first living artist from Samoa, New Zealand and the South
Pacific region to hold a solo exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, following the
acquisition of her work by the museum for its permanent collection.
George Nuku is an internationally celebrated sculptor and multimedia artist. Trained in the Maori
tradition of carving, he works in natural media such as bone, stone and shell, but also with synthetic
materials such as plastic, Perspex and polystyrene. “Tradition is about the ongoing process of being
innovative” he explains, “I want to make things that my ancestors haven’t seen before…I can’t just
photocopy what they did, I don’t think they want us to do that.” In a work specially commissioned for the
exhibition, Nuku revisits the archetypal space of ethnographic contact, the museum. Evoking the
colonial curiosity cabinet, Nuku’s display cases gradually release their captive objects, freeing them to be
touched by the visitor, and transgressing the physical boundaries which traditionally separate and
delineate cultures in the museum. “These objects are bigger than the box that holds them” he continues,
“we need to recognise that there’s a divinity to every material, every thing.” Nuku was recently
commissioned to create a unique waharoa (gateway sculpture) for the entrance to the New Zealand
Room at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
Rosanna Raymond is a poet, performer, costume designer, dancer, and jewellery-maker, as well as an
artist and curator. In a new work for this exhibition, she continues her long-running investigation into the
motif of the Dusky Maiden. From the eighteenth century oil paintings of Captain Cook’s resident artist
William Hodges, to the works of Paul Gauguin, and into the present, the image of Pacific Island women
as semi-clad, naïve yet sexually receptive ‘Dusky Maidens’ has pervaded the Western imaginary. Within
Maori and Pacific Island culture however, women are understood to descend from powerful goddesses,
and to be duly imbued with great potency and strength. In The Dusky Ain’t Dead She’s Just Diversified,
Raymond reclaims the Dusky Maiden, exposing her latent power, and celebrating her diversity of guises,
in rejection of the singular conception of Pacific beauty suggested by Western visual discourse.
Employing poetry, performance, costume, body adornment, film and photography, the work will evolve
over the course of the exhibition to produce a resounding celebration of the female spirit. Born in New
Zealand, Raymond is of Samoan-Päkehä descent, and currently lives and works in London. She was a
founding member of the acclaimed art collective Pacific Sisters, and was co-curator and artistic director
of the Pasifika Styles festival in Cambridge between 2006 and 2008.
Lisa Reihana is a Maori artist whose work comments on gender politics, cultural agency and
museological interventions, and who has played a leading role in the development of film and multimedia
art in Aotearoa (New Zealand). For ethKnowcentrix, she presents the male atua (ancestral deities) from
her photographic series Digital Marae. Marae meeting houses are central to Maori community life, and
serve as a site for discussion, ceremony and celebration. Reihana’s Digital Marae reconsiders locations
of identity and belonging through a series of portraits of mythical and ancestral atua, such as Dandy. In
his juxtaposition of Ta Moko facial tattoo and nineteenth century European dress, Dandy signals the
possibility of inhabiting plural realms. As a takatapui or ‘third gendered’ person, he occupies a liminal
space not only between genders, but also between false oppositions such as indigenous/ foreign and
traditional/ modern. Reihana invites us to delve beyond such categories and investigate the intertwined
complexity of our shared histories. Lisa Reihana has undertaken two commissions for Te Papa
Tongarewa (the Museum of New Zealand), and has represented New Zealand at the 2000 Sydney
Biennale, the 1996 and 2002 Asia Pacific Triennales in Brisbane, and the Noumea Biennale in 2002.
Her work also featured in Paradise Now? at the Asia Society Museum in New York in 2004, and in
Latitudes at the Havana Biennale in 2009.
- Events At October Gallery
Artists’ Forum Saturday 12th September, 10 am – 7.30 pm (£15/ £10 conc)
A day of talks and discussion entitled nau te rourou, naku te rourou ka ora te manuwhiri (with your food
basket and my food basket the people will be fed). Artists, students, performers and scholars from the
UK and Polynesia discuss the issues and challenges faced by cultural leaders, artists, researchers and
curators in today’s global art markets. Price includes coffee, tea, Polynesian lunch and evening
reception.
Artists’ Talks Tuesday 15th September, 6.30 pm (Free)
Exhibiting artists Rosanna Raymond, Lisa Reihana and George Nuku discuss their work. Shigeyuki
Kihara performs ‘Taualuga: the Last Dance’. A traditional Samoan dance of celebration, the artist uses
the taualuga’s principles of storytelling to reference history and current global issues, combining
photography, dance, sound and historical costume. ‘Taualuga; the last Dance’ has been performed at
selected venues including the 4th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane Australia; Musėe
du Quai Branly, Paris and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Poroporoaki (Farewell) Saturday 10th October, 3.00 pm (Free)
A day of celebration to mark the end of the exhibition, with the UK based Polynesian community and
artists George Nuku and Rosanna Raymond. Featuring artists’ talks, performances, food and a final
closing ceremony.
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Rebecca Hossack Gallery
Killum Billums (live art installation) 24th September
The performance ‘Killum Billums’ is a Live-Art-Installation directed by Rosanna Raymond, featuring
Billum clothing by Cathy Cata. The performance is part of the exhibition ‘Hailans to Ailans’ at the
Rebecca Hossack Gallery (16.09.09 – 17.10.09), which features works by contemporary artists from
Papua New Guinea.
Further details of the events to be announced.
- Notes for Editors Exhibition:
Exhibition dates:
Artists’ Forum:
Artists’ Talks:
Poroporoaki
(Farewell):
Venue:
Telephone:
Fax:
Opening hours:
Courtyard café:
Admission:
Website:
Email:
Nearest tubes:
Buses:
Press contact:
ethKnowcentrix – Museums Inside the Artist
10th September – 10th October 2009
Events
12th September 2009, 10 am – 7.30 pm (£15/£10 conc)
15th September 2009, 6.30 pm (Free)
10th October 2009, 3 pm (Free)
October Gallery
24 Old Gloucester Street
London WC1N 3AL
020 7242 7367
020 7405 1851
Tuesday – Saturday 12.30 - 5.30pm
Tuesday – Friday 12.30 - 2.30pm
Free
www.octobergallery.co.uk
press@octobergallery.co.uk
Holborn/Russell Square
19, 25, 38, 55, 168 and 188
Alana Pryce 020 7242 7367
Supported by
Image: Lisa Reihana, Dandy from Digital Marae, 2007.
120 x 200cm Digital photograph on aluminium