NZ-based artist awarded Samoa residency

Transcript

A New Zealand-based Samoan artist known for her performance art and recreation of historical scenes has been awarded an artist's residency in Samoa.

Of Samoan and Japanese heritage, Shigeyuki Kihara explores the relationships between gender, race, culture and history in her work.  

She told Amelia Langford she plans to use the three-month residency to delve deeper into her curatorial research into the local Samoan art scene.

SHIGEYUKI KIHARA: The artist in residence programme that is being funded by Creative New Zealand and hosted by National University of Samoa has been going on for the last couple of years now and I applied for the residency in hope that I could continue my curatorial research into the current contemporary art scene that is growing rapidly in the islands at the moment. And the reason behind my research is that so much of what we understand as being contemporary Samoan art tends to be overshadowed by what is taking place in New Zealand. But since I have been travelling back and forth to Samoa periodically over the last couple of years I have been seeing a steady growth of the art scene from music, to theatre, and the visual arts and in order for me I guess to find out what is currently happening in the island I decided I would look at Samoa through the lens of the artists and I have interviewed over 11 artists so far.

My curatorial research into the local Samoan art scene and artists began earlier this year. And it has been amazing - it has been great. The group of artists that I am currently focussing on in Samoa - I am focussing particularly on artists who are showing their work within the museum and gallery context. I am not saying that the kind of art that is made in the customary context in the rural areas of Samoa, in regards to housebuilding, canoe building, stone carving, weaving and cloth making, I mean, they are all contemporary art, they are all contemporary artists, but I am focussing on a small group of artists  

AMELIA LANGFORD: So there is a thriving art scene in Samoa obviously?

SK: I wouldn't say it is thriving but it is steadily growing. You know, Samoa is a developing country that is mostly funded by foreign aid and a lot of the aid money that filters into the island - it all goes into building infrastructure and so then the creative industry sector is actually, you know - the culture sector, is actually the last of the priorities with regards to development and I find that there is a danger in that because as we move into an increasingly globalised world and Samoa looking into tapping into this process of globalisation and building mega structures mainly from aid from China, I feel that culture always get neglected. So what happens when you neglect culture is your priorities become realigned to meet the global market. And I am aware of what is currently taking place and how culture is being neglected but at the same time I know that my contribution to the culture sector in Samoa would help maybe perhaps build on what already exists there.

AL: By the time you complete your artist's residency, what are you hoping to come out with?

SK: Well, I am hoping to come out with an understanding of what is currently happening in the contemporary art scene in Samoa - how artists are making a living and how artists are supported. And so once I figure that out I know the kinds of projects that I can perhaps merge from Samoa to be presented in Samoa and elsewhere in the world, including New Zealand.

AL: Tell me also a little bit about your work. I'm just looking at an image here [of yours] of Mau Headquarters, Vaimoso, which is a beautiful work. Tell me what you are interested in when it comes to your art and your work.

SK: Okay I am an artist that works between performance, video and photography and a lot of my work draws on specific history generally and Samoan history specifically and I am interested in looking at the varying degrees between gender, race, culture and history. I am known as an artist for recreating historical scenes through video and photography. I often use my body as part of the artistic material so you would see me in these series of works in a fictitious guise of another character. I recently produced a series of photographs entitled Where do we come from? what are we? and where are we going? and these are a series of photographs that were shot on location in Samoa in the aftermath of cyclone Evan which took place in December 2012. So what you see in these series of photographs is that you see myself in the guise of a fictitious character called Salome, who is a ghost from the past who revisits Samoa to see if the aspirations of our descendants, which is her time - Salome's time, have been realised by the current descendants but when she revists Samoa she sees a devastated Samoa.

Shigeyuki Kihara's works have been presented internationally, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her current touring exhibition is titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Undressing the Pacific.