the photographer shattering the cultural heritage of Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings

Japanese-Samoan artist Yuki Kihara is perhaps best known for her work that challenges depictions of the Pacific Islands and its people popularized by Western artists and colonial-era photographers. Often using historical imagery as source material, she reworks familiar depictions of First Nations people, using subtle interventions to displace traditional readings and empower her subjects.

For Kihara’s latest body of work, paradise camp, she turned to the Tahitian paintings of Paul Gauguin made between 1891 and 1903. last year, recreates French Post-Impressionist art paintings as photographs. Kihara distributes members of the fa’afafine community, the culturally recognized third gender of Samoa, as main subjects.

The Journal of the Arts: paradise camp had a long gestation period. How did an encounter with Gauguin’s paintings in New York become a catalyst for this project?

Yuki Kihara: I was lucky enough to have a personal exhibition [Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs] at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008. I basically had access to the museum through staff. Do you know this film Night at the museum? It was pretty much like that. I came across the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements and saw a painting by Paul Gauguin. Before coming to the Met, I only saw Gauguin paintings on a T-shirt, on a coffee mug, accessories, tea towels and all that sort of thing. I was actually very intrigued that people were making so much noise about it. The paintings reminded me of photographs of people and places in Samoa, including members of the fa’afafine community, which is the indigenous community of the third sex. And then I started reading about Paul Gauguin’s life in French Polynesia.

What have you discovered?

I found visual evidence [suggesting] that although Gauguin never set foot in Samoa, he may have used photographs of people and places in Samoa to develop his major paintings. The silhouette of the man Three Tahitians the painting was very similar to the photograph of a Samoan man photographed by colonial New Zealand photographer Thomas Andrew, whose postcards were actively circulating in the tourist market throughout the country.

In the Auckland Art Gallery guest book in 1895 there was a signature of Paul Gauguin. So I think he may have collected these photographs, brought them back to his studio in Tahiti, and used them as a fundamental reference, which resulted in the development of his major paintings.

You identify yourself as fa’afafine. Can you tell us about this community and why you chose them as models for this work?

Whenever I do work, I always think about who I want to hold accountable. I think for too long we [the fa’afafine] have been pushed aside, marginalized, exploited, undervalued. In Samoa, there are four culturally recognized genera. There is tanned, which is a word to describe cisgender men; There is starve, who is a cisgender woman; and here fa’afafine, meaning in a female way, which is used to describe those who, like me, are biologically assigned males at birth who express their gender in a feminine way. And we also have fa’atama, which is male-like, used to describe females assigned at birth, who express their gender in a masculine way. However, the fa’afafine And fa’atama communities [are] not legally recognized and the reason why we are not legally recognized is because [Samoa] went through two colonialisms.

It was really fortuitous that paradise camp ended up in Venice and it’s now going around the world before it gets to Samoa because without Venice and all sorts of critical attention around it I don’t think anyone would care about the kind of things I’m interested in to talk about.

paradise camp was not originally conceived for the Venice Biennale. How has the opportunity to represent New Zealand changed the project?

paradise camp had been in preparation for ten years and during that time I did my own reconnaissance. When I did the scouting and found the budget to do it right, because it was so big and so ambitious, I realized the only type of funding available was Creative New Zealand’s budget to the Venice Biennale. I thought, if it’s the budget that can make it happen, if it’s for Venice, then so be it.

Of the 12 photographs of paradise camp, 11 were taken at various locations across Samoa. What was it like working on location with your cast and crew?

paradise camp employed 100 people locally on the island. It also required extensive consultation with traditional landowners, because it meant people from outside their villages would come with vans full of people to set up a tent and lights and all that sort of thing. So it was very important for the traditional landowners to be knowledgeable and knowledgeable about the kind of logistics needed for my production team to travel to their village to do a variety of shoots. We also needed to consult a resort to use as a production headquarters, not only for our team, but also to accommodate talent. So even though it was a photographic production, I used the methodology of filmmaking in an activist way to make sure everyone played their part.

Why did you choose the title?

When you think of paradise, the first thing people think of is the Pacific Islands, usually a newly married heterosexual couple, holding hands dressed in white, walking along the beach at dusk, while a native waits around the corner ready to serve cocktails. If I had to dissect this tourist representation of the Pacific, to me it’s like a direct replica of Adam and Eve: they’re both white, they’re both cisgender, and the serpent serpent is the native holding the cocktail. . I wanted to deploy the camp aesthetic to challenge this heteronormative western idea of ​​paradise. SO paradise camp is essentially the fa’afafine version of what our paradise could be, inclusive, diverse and sensitive to changes in nature and the environment.

paradise camp includes a talk show, First impressionsfeaturing members of the fa’afafine And fa’atama communities criticizing the work of Gauguin. How did it happen?

I actually did First impressions before taking the pictures. There was a major Gauguin blockbuster showing at the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco and the curator wanted to include indigenous voices, and they approached me. And since we have very little space to show contemporary art on the islands, I thought of a TV show because at least my family can watch it. So it was made for TV and my mother took care of the catering, and my relatives did the decor. It was fun, that
was a true community effort.

The magic of being part of fa’afafine community is that when we all get together our gossip sessions are limitless, it’s very trashy because we just like to laugh and have fun. I wanted to capture some of the private conversation we have with each other on the TV show. When people in the Pacific region are asked who Paul Gauguin is, no one knows. What I find ironic is that this figure seen as rooted in the development of modernism has no relevance to the Pacific community. What First impressions fact is to give an overview of what Samoan fa’afafine think of the work of Paul Gauguin; it actually becomes a commentary on themselves and their lives, and that’s what makes it interesting.

Biography

Born: 1975 Apia, Samoa

Lives: Apia, Samoa

Education: Massey University
(formerly Wellington Polytechnic),
New Zealand

The key shows: 2023 Gwangju Biennale (coming soon); 2023 Powerhouse Ultimo, Sydney (solo exhibition); 2022 New Zealand Pavilion, Venice Biennale; 2022 Aichi Triennial; 2018 Bangkok Art Biennale; 2017 Honolulu Biennial; 2014 Daegu Photography Biennale; 2013 Five-Year of Sakahàn; 2015 Asia-Pacific Triennial; 2008 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (solo exhibition); 2002 Asia-Pacific Triennial

Represented by: Milford Galleries, New Zealand

• Yuki Kihara’s paradise camp, Powerhouse Ultimo, Sydney, 24 March-December 2023