“The meaning of my Japanese name is ‘naked autumn trees clothed by the falls of gentle snowflakes’,” says Samoan artist, Yuki Kihara.
“It [speaks of] seasonal changes between autumn and winter, and I kind of feel my name epitomises the way I approach my art practice, which is that I always want to be somewhere in the middle, as a mediator of various forces and ideas.”
Indeed, Kihara’s work reflects the essence of her name.
An interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent working and living in Samoa over the past 12 years, she takes a research-based approach to challenge the dominant and singular historical narratives and their persistence in the socio-political climate, while often referencing the language of cultural traditions in her native land through a wide range of mediums, including performance, sculpture, video, photography, and curatorial practice.
We spoke with Kihara about her photographic exhibition – ‘Paradise Camp’, which has come to Samoa after receiving widespread exposure and acclaim internationally.
The photographic series recasts and ‘upcycles’ select paintings by French post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848 – 1903), inspired by photographs of Samoa.
Additionally, the ‘Paradise Camp’ photographs reclaim the colonial narratives of Gaugin’s work by featuring Fa’afafine and Fa’atama models—a third and fourth-gender community unique to Samoan culture—by speaking of their experience with climate change as a form of resilience and empowerment.
The ‘Paradise Camp’ photo shoot which took place in March 2020, involved a local cast and crew of close to 100 people, photographed on locations, including rural villages, churches, plantations and heritage sites in the Aleipata district and wider Upolu Island. The exhibition features a powerful suite of photographs presented as an outdoor exhibition, each of the 12 photographs surrounded by lushtropical foliage situated across the premises of the Saletoga Sands Resort & Spa.
CNN describes Kihara’s works as ‘powerful’, the Financial Times calls them ‘meticulously composed and super luscious’, and the New Zealand Herald deems the ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition as ‘thought provoking’.
Among the many exhibitions Kihara has presented over the last two decades is a solo exhibition entitled ‘Living Photographs’ (2008) presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, New York.
Kihara’s work is included in more than 30 permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; British Museum; National Museum of World Cultures, The Netherlands; National Museum of Scotland; Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand.
Kihara is currently curating the touring solo exhibition of artist and scholar, Katerina Teaiwa, entitled ‘Project Banaba’ (2017) commissioned by Carriageworks, Sydney.
Kihara is also co-editor alongside Dan Taulapapa McMullin of ‘Samoan Queer Lives’ (2018) featuring 14 autobiographical chapters from Fa’afafine & LGBTIQ+ Samoans based in Samoa, American Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawai’i and Turtle Island USA.
“In the context of the exhibition in Sāmoa, it’s a different kind of conversation,” Kihara told Islands Business.
The ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition partly looks at the appropriation by Gauguin, who used photographs of Samoa as the foundational reference development of his major paintings, which portrayed the Tahitian and Marquesan cultural way of life.
Kihara saw Gauguin’s paintings at the Metropolitan Museum in New York for the very first time in 2008.
“When I looked at the paintings, it was quite uncanny because when I saw the models and the landscape, it looked very like the photographs from a New Zealand colonial photographer, Thomas Andrew, who had set up his photographic studio in Samoa in the early 1900s.
“Out of curiosity, I compared paintings by Gauguin produced at the time in French Polynesia, to the photographs of Thomas Andrew, and I actually found visual records that show that Gauguin used photographs of Thomas Andrew taken in Samoa as an inspiration to develop his paintings which he gave Tahitian and Marquesas titles to.
“This was a form of appropriation, so what I’m doing with my photographic series is to reclaim the colonial narrative.”
Kihara said it was important for her to bring ‘Paradise Camp’ to Samoa because the core audience for exhibition was the Fa’afafine and Fa’atama community.
“I made ‘Paradise Camp’ to empower them, so it was important for me to bring it back to Samoa and also coincide with our Independence Day.”
Kihara explains the four culturally recognised genders in Samoa.
“Tane means cis gender man, Fafine means cis gender woman (cis gender is where their sex aligns with the gender),” says Kihara. “So, for example if you’re born male, you grow up to be a boy and a man – and if you’re born female, you grow up to be a girl and a woman. And then there are Fa’afafine and Fa’atama. Fa’afafine are those like me, assigned male at birth but express their gender in a feminine way, and you also have Fa’atama – those that are assigned female at birth who express their gender in a masculine way. This all tied to the creation story of Samoa which talks about how the first human beings were gender transformers. In the early creation story of Samoa, the early humans were able to change their gender.”
The ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition opened in June, officiated by Deputy Prime Minister, Afioga Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio, with support from the Samoa Fa’afafine Association patron and Leader of the Opposition, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Maleilegaoi.
Kihara said that for the gender minority in Sāmoa, visibility is important, especially to decision makers in government.
The ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition is a catalyst for visibility.
“Additionally, it’s important that we reinstate our original gender matrix of Tane, Fafine, Fa’afafine and Fa’atama to rebuild the resilience of the Samoan people together, by first acknowledging Fa’afafine and Fa’atama’s invisible labour and contribution they make to their family, extended family, the village, the church, to the country of Samoa and across the diaspora.”
She said that in a small way, ‘Paradise Camp’ has helped to assure locals and visitors alike, that despite its own challenges, Samoa continues to remain a country that strives for inclusion, diversity, equality and equity.
‘Paradise Camp’ portrays a Fa’afafine and Fa’atama utopia, a paradise where people are no longer judged for their gender and sexuality while living in harmony with nature.
“The reason I needed to create this fictitious paradise because the world we are currently living in [is] opposite to that,” said Kihara. “I’m saying that because of the impact of climate change on the indigenous third gender community, particularly the Fa’afafine community in Samoa. Climate change emphasises inequality amongst the genders.
“While the Fa’afafine and Fa’atama community may be culturally recognised, but because we are not legally recognised, our experience with climate change is often not reflected in policies and legislations. And then what you find is that in the event of natural disasters, we are often left to fend for ourselves while we are expected to help everyone else.”
The ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition has also toured internationally, first premiering at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. It subsequently toured the Powerhouse Museum, Gadigal land, Sydney. The exhibition will be on view at the Saletoga Resort till January 2025.
The international reception to the exhibition has led to the growing momentum to see the return of ‘Paradise Camp’ to Samoa, where it all began.
“When ‘Paradise Camp’ premiered at the Venice Biennale, remember that in 2022, the world was coming out of COVID which is another form of a natural disaster which amplified the inequalities around the world with regards to access to healthcare and inequalities across gender, sexuality and race,” said Kihara.
“So, within that global context, when ‘Paradise Camp’ was premiered at the Venice Biennale, all these issues around gender, sexuality and race were experienced during the two-year lockdown and this was highlighted, in a way, in the ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition. So as a result, the exhibition was a critical success. We were reviewed on CNN, the Financial Times, Vogue magazine, you name it.”
