In 2008 Yuki Kihara, a Pasifika and Fa’afafine (Sāmoa’s ‘third gender’) artist from Aotearoa, visited a Paul Gaugain exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of art. Kihara was surprised to recognise Sāmoa and aspects of the Fa’afafine community in Gaugain’s paintings, and the first seeds of Paradise Camp were born.
Consisting of 12 tableau photographs featuring 100 people in Sāmoa, Paradise Camp repurposes and upcycles Gaugain’s paintings, dismantling gender roles, misconceptions, and colonial narratives and ‘returning the gaze’ to Pacific Islanders.
Paradise Camp was first exhibited at the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, and is making its Australian debut at Powerhouse Ultimo. Kihara says, “I’m inspired by the Powerhouse Museum’s Pacific collections and look forward to presenting new works as part of the Paradise Camp exhibition that questions the idea of modernism as a singular Western heteronormative phenomenon.”
View, in pictures, these evocative tableau photographs.
Siapo (Samoan bark cloth) from the Powerhouse collection in Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara. Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Installation view of Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara. Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Charles Kerry glass plates from the Powerhouse collection in Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara. Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Gauguin Landscapes, 2023. Artwork by Yuki Kihara. Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Installation view of Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara. Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Si’ou alofa Maria: Hail Mary (After Gauguin), 2020. Artwork by Yuki Kihara . Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp
Powerhouse Ultimo
Until December 2023
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