Return to Sender (2013)
In partnership with Tautai arts and Papakura Art Gallery
Aaron Unasa/Salome Tanuvasa/Louisa Afoa/Angela TiaTia/Lonnie Hutchinson/Darcell Apelu/Lana Lopesi/Ani O'Neill/Theo Ah Wong
Return to Sender - Curatorial essay by Cora-Allan Wickliffe
Explores colonial constructed misrepresentations and perceptions of pacific island identity, and delves into deconstructing the way tourism and commercial avenues have placed pacific people in the position of the ‘exotic’.
Return to Sender invites dialogue around these ideas asking emerging and senior artists to add depth around this conversation of colonial constructed identities. Artists began this conversation after viewing colonial postcard images which has led to a diverse show featuring different facets of pacific stories by pacific people.
The show was created to present a space of conversation where the artists could address some of the realities that aren’t shared in the classroom. The door being left open for them to present their own stories of migration, loss of tradition, culture and so on exploring tangents in order to address the constructions of pacific identity in the past and present.
The Artists
With a strong political voice Lana Lopesi leads into the conversation with constructed narratives as works with found imagery from a Eurocentric perspective to re-capture and retell the stories of pacific people by gaining control of this narration. Her black and white images contrasting with vivid font focus on the misrepresented promise of a better way of life in Aotearoa.
The process of migration for families saw the loss of cultural elements such as language and ways of being. Salome Tanuvasa establishes her voice in a collection of objects which she has installed in order to navigate this conversation of new environments and the realities of migration.
Theo Ah-Wong uses American cultural anthropologist Margaret Meads works surrounding her time in Samoa where she did cultural exploration and contributed to text that began to describe and categorise sexuality in the pacific during the 60’s. Literature from Western perspectives have been the documented voice portraying pacific identity and culture, Ah-Wong addresses this disempowerment through cutting away at postcard images reflecting the gaps created and left in pacific identity.
With a deeper focus on the sexually exoticised position of pacific people, Lonnie Hutchinson explores in her work that references Aboriginal and Pacific women who were kept as sex slaves in the holds of pearl trading ships. Her work features redrawn drawings from the suite of Black Pearl drawings that Hutchinson animated to make a DVD work; As an influence from her growing public art production her machine cut larger than life steel combs appeal to us as objects of fascination and difference, the hardness of steel comes to life through the movement of its shadow.
Emerging from these ideas of objectification Angela Tiatia offers a work that highlights the touristic perception of pacific culture. With the use of moving image Tiatia has captured the ideas between the relationship of cause and effect as she places herself into the viewing lens, surrounding herself by the world that contributes to this idea of how the observed is affected by the observer. Aaron Unasa portrays the commercialisation of pacific culture through recreating the Ta’iri or Cook Island fan with the snapback hat. The use of the snapback hat incorporates pop culture with traditional pacific island culture as a way of transforming a foreign item into something more familiar and saleable. Unasa uses imitation snap backs to address ideas of marketing and promotion which contributes to artificial objects losing the authenticity which often happens increasingly often with pacific objects. Continuing the conversations of commercialism through the touristic constructed objects, Ani O’Neill adds to the discussion with an overly accentuated figurine that brings discussion to the loss of sacredness given to cultural gods as their en masse production contributes to this loss. ‘Tangaroa’ is a figurine that reminds us of not just how pacific cultural elements have become collectable but also the sense of humour of pacific people.
Looking into other forms of popular culture, Louisa Afoa explores with an intimate moving image work that shows struggles of surviving within your culture when you are being led by a generation who have disconnected themselves from traditions in order to survive in the white Western world. This dilemma has pushed a growing small community of young pacific people into an Asian influenced popular culture called K POP (Korean popular culture). This scene allows forms of expression and interest which is the leading part of the conversation in Afoa’s work, her work focuses on not just the interest in K POP but the path and reasons that have led to displacement within culture but a sense of belonging in another.
Darcell Apelu explores her own sense of cultural displacement through a performance that is all based on the passing of knowledge through a written medium. With no one to teach her traditional ways as her father was not taught these skills either, Apelu is working from a set of instructions to learn how to make an ‘Umu’ which is a common pacific island method of cooking feasts. However, pushing the Western influences that leak into our ways of being, at times go against the inclusive nature of pacific culture and prepares a feast for one. In a land where the average family food package serves 4 which does not cater for an average pacific island family, Apelu highlights the importance that food plays in pacific culture as a tool of building relationship and creating community.
Within the spectrum of colonial construction and misrepresentation of pacific identity in the show, the artists all bring a voice that supports a new construction and realisation of pacific identity. Through personal pieces constructed and lent to the show, we are able to recognise and acknowledge the way pacific artist tell stories of our own histories from direct, playful and straight up positions that speak powerfully into the bigger narrative of pacific realities and identity of the past and present.
Explores colonial constructed misrepresentations and perceptions of pacific island identity, and delves into deconstructing the way tourism and commercial avenues have placed pacific people in the position of the ‘exotic’.
Return to Sender invites dialogue around these ideas asking emerging and senior artists to add depth around this conversation of colonial constructed identities. Artists began this conversation after viewing colonial postcard images which has led to a diverse show featuring different facets of pacific stories by pacific people.
The show was created to present a space of conversation where the artists could address some of the realities that aren’t shared in the classroom. The door being left open for them to present their own stories of migration, loss of tradition, culture and so on exploring tangents in order to address the constructions of pacific identity in the past and present.
The Artists
With a strong political voice Lana Lopesi leads into the conversation with constructed narratives as works with found imagery from a Eurocentric perspective to re-capture and retell the stories of pacific people by gaining control of this narration. Her black and white images contrasting with vivid font focus on the misrepresented promise of a better way of life in Aotearoa.
The process of migration for families saw the loss of cultural elements such as language and ways of being. Salome Tanuvasa establishes her voice in a collection of objects which she has installed in order to navigate this conversation of new environments and the realities of migration.
Theo Ah-Wong uses American cultural anthropologist Margaret Meads works surrounding her time in Samoa where she did cultural exploration and contributed to text that began to describe and categorise sexuality in the pacific during the 60’s. Literature from Western perspectives have been the documented voice portraying pacific identity and culture, Ah-Wong addresses this disempowerment through cutting away at postcard images reflecting the gaps created and left in pacific identity.
With a deeper focus on the sexually exoticised position of pacific people, Lonnie Hutchinson explores in her work that references Aboriginal and Pacific women who were kept as sex slaves in the holds of pearl trading ships. Her work features redrawn drawings from the suite of Black Pearl drawings that Hutchinson animated to make a DVD work; As an influence from her growing public art production her machine cut larger than life steel combs appeal to us as objects of fascination and difference, the hardness of steel comes to life through the movement of its shadow.
Emerging from these ideas of objectification Angela Tiatia offers a work that highlights the touristic perception of pacific culture. With the use of moving image Tiatia has captured the ideas between the relationship of cause and effect as she places herself into the viewing lens, surrounding herself by the world that contributes to this idea of how the observed is affected by the observer. Aaron Unasa portrays the commercialisation of pacific culture through recreating the Ta’iri or Cook Island fan with the snapback hat. The use of the snapback hat incorporates pop culture with traditional pacific island culture as a way of transforming a foreign item into something more familiar and saleable. Unasa uses imitation snap backs to address ideas of marketing and promotion which contributes to artificial objects losing the authenticity which often happens increasingly often with pacific objects. Continuing the conversations of commercialism through the touristic constructed objects, Ani O’Neill adds to the discussion with an overly accentuated figurine that brings discussion to the loss of sacredness given to cultural gods as their en masse production contributes to this loss. ‘Tangaroa’ is a figurine that reminds us of not just how pacific cultural elements have become collectable but also the sense of humour of pacific people.
Looking into other forms of popular culture, Louisa Afoa explores with an intimate moving image work that shows struggles of surviving within your culture when you are being led by a generation who have disconnected themselves from traditions in order to survive in the white Western world. This dilemma has pushed a growing small community of young pacific people into an Asian influenced popular culture called K POP (Korean popular culture). This scene allows forms of expression and interest which is the leading part of the conversation in Afoa’s work, her work focuses on not just the interest in K POP but the path and reasons that have led to displacement within culture but a sense of belonging in another.
Darcell Apelu explores her own sense of cultural displacement through a performance that is all based on the passing of knowledge through a written medium. With no one to teach her traditional ways as her father was not taught these skills either, Apelu is working from a set of instructions to learn how to make an ‘Umu’ which is a common pacific island method of cooking feasts. However, pushing the Western influences that leak into our ways of being, at times go against the inclusive nature of pacific culture and prepares a feast for one. In a land where the average family food package serves 4 which does not cater for an average pacific island family, Apelu highlights the importance that food plays in pacific culture as a tool of building relationship and creating community.
Within the spectrum of colonial construction and misrepresentation of pacific identity in the show, the artists all bring a voice that supports a new construction and realisation of pacific identity. Through personal pieces constructed and lent to the show, we are able to recognise and acknowledge the way pacific artist tell stories of our own histories from direct, playful and straight up positions that speak powerfully into the bigger narrative of pacific realities and identity of the past and present.
