Descend down the ramp to the Powerhouse Ultimo’s lower levels to discover an alluringly saturated exhibition. Wrapped in the shell of a tropical paradise, stunning large-scale photographs and video installations beckon to you as you stroll across a floor laminated with golden sands and a blue, rippling ocean-like surface. But peer a little deeper, and you’ll discover a cunning humour and clever skewering of oppressive forces, lying just beneath the surface. Gender roles, consumerism, climate change denial, and colonial legacies in the Pacific are all dismantled in Paradise Camp.
Yuki Kihara, an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Sāmoan descent, made waves at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, where she was the first Pasifika, Asian and Fa’afafine (Sāmoa’s ‘third gender’) artist to represent Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2023, the Australian premiere of Paradise Camp, curated by Natalie King, now includes new works created by Kihara in response to the Powerhouse Museum’s Collection.
Kihara’s body of work exposes the truth of Gauguin’s idyllic artworks...
“Paradise Camp explores the intersection between identity politics, climate change and decolonization,” says Kihara. “It's at this intersection that I wanted to explore this experience from a very specific Fa’afafine perspective. So what is Fa’afafine? Well, Fa’afafine [meaning ‘in the manner of a woman’] is an Indigenous third gender community in Sāmoa. So, where is Sāmoa? Sāmoa is a string of islands located in central Polynesia. There is a direct flight from the capital city of Apia to Sydney, which is about five hours.”
Twelve meticulously curated photographic tableaux are included in the exhibition, featuring a cast and crew of 100 people on location in Sāmoa, repurposing and upcycling paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin with a nod to tourism campaigns and camp aesthetics.
Gauguin is best known for the prolific paintings he created while living on the Islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas. However Kihara’s body of work demonstrates how Gauguin’s idyllic artworks were more likely influenced by photographic postcards that depicted Sāmoan people and landscapes which he never saw with his own eyes. For the large-scale collage ‘Gauguin Landscapes’, Kihara drew on the museum’s extensive collection of glass plate negatives by 19th century Australian photographer Charles Kerry, melding archive photographs of shorelines and river scenes of the Sāmoan archipelago, with landscape paintings by Gauguin.
Photograph: Powerhouse/Zan Wimberley | ‘Paradise Camp’ installation view
“In the Sāmoan context, when we look at ‘paradise’, we always refer to the tourist brochures with a newly married couple holding hands, you know, walking alongside the beach. And then there's one of us natives waiting in the corner ready to serve cocktails," Kihara explains. “And so for me, it's a very racialised and heteronormatised idea of paradise. What I wanted to do is to deploy the aesthetic of camp to actually challenge this idea of paradise.”
Kihara’s photographic re-enactments impose a Polynesian inflection and reclamation on Gauguin’s outsized legacy. What is palpable in the imagery are the strong personal relationships Kihara shares with her sitters, all of whom are part of the Fa‘afafine and Fa‘atama (or ‘non-binary’) communities.
“However Fa‘afafine and Fa‘atama, we are not legally recognised. And because we aren’t legally recognised, issues around climate change, decolonisation and identity politics, compound each other and impact us in a very specific way. Sometimes, it's very ironic and hilarious, and sometimes it's very painful, and it's very confronting.”
You can delve even deeper with the companion publication, a gorgeous hard cover book featuring international commissions that explore the interwoven strands running through Kihara’s Paradise Camp – with contributions from Coco Fusco, Patrick Flores and Ngahuia te Awekotuku.
Photograph: Powerhouse/Zan Wimberley | ‘Paradise Camp’ installation view
Paradise Camp draws on heartbreaking legacies, and yet it is first and foremost a joyful celebration of Indigenous and queer resistance from a distinctly Pasifika perspective. Take a break from the inflammatory and reactionary anti-trans perspectives circulating in the news, and have a float in the cool waters of Paradise Camp.
While you’re in the building, you should also peruse Absolutely Queer, a very fashionable homage to Sydney’s creative queer community.
Paradise Camp is showing now at the Powerhouse Ultimo until December 2023. Entry is free and no booking is required.
Put Thursday, June 15, in your calendar for Paradise Fair (5-9pm) – an after-hours event featuring a curated Pasifika program with dance, music and talks. Presented by Powerhouse Late and Vivid.
