Greg Semu

Greg Semu is a contemporary photographer of Sāmoan heritage, born in 1971 and raised in Aotearoa New Zealand, in a family who had practiced the Christian faith for three generations. His work grapples with legacies of colonial violence, while simultaneously bringing the voices of First Nations people and cultural minorities to the forefront of his practice. He does this through the processes of community consultation and research.² When Semu speaks about shifting cultural paradigms, he does so with the hope of evolving the conversation around colonisation.

Auto-portrait with twelve disciples is part of a series of images that Semu created in 2010 called The Last Cannibal Supper… Cause Tomorrow We Become Christians, which originated when he was on a residency at the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Agency for Development of Kanak Culture in Nouméa, New Caledonia.

Semu created the work to demonstrate the hypocrisy that Western culture perpetuates when positioning itself as a superior culture, while degrading and suppressing Sāmoan cultural traditions. In this work, Semu describes himself as ‘hijacking’⁴ the narrative. This implies that he is using force to take control, or rather reclaim control, of how Sāmoan culture is perceived by the world. When staging the series of photographs, Semu invited the local Kanak community in New Caledonia to be involved as the subjects, crew, actors, performers, and audience. In doing so, he extended an invitation to his community to revise how their history is presented to outsiders.

Referencing Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century fresco, The Last Supper, in Auto-portrait with twelve disciples, Semu casts himself as the central figure representing Jesus. By displaying his Pe’a tatau⁵, traditional Sāmoan male tattoos, Semu deliberately personalises his work of art, as each tattoo is a ceremonial birthright that is unique to the wearer. For Semu, his tattoos represent an act of ‘silent protest’⁶. Semu is protesting the hypocrisy that colonial proponents of Christianity displayed by positioning the religion as a dominant and long-standing ideology. Tattooing has existed in Sāmoan culture for an estimated three to five thousand years, predating Christianity.

Semu asks us to consider the Sāmoan tattoo as a religious text,

Of the twelve disciples that surround Semu in his photograph is a bare-chested woman. Her role in the image is to draw attention to Western art history and ethnographic approaches to depicting naked First Nations women in settings that resemble the Garden of Eden, while at the same time noting Gauguin’s use of this motif.⁷

The protagonists in Semu’s photograph stand behind a feast of Sāmoan food, disembodied prosthetic limbs and a severed head, acknowledging their Kanak ancestors who practiced ritual cannibalism. Semu’s work emphasises the hypocrisy displayed by colonists and proponents of Christianity, who labelled these ancestors ‘savages’ while maintaining that eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ was ‘civilised’.

Semu ‘hijacks’ the The Last Supper to reclaim power and authority over how his people and culture are represented, while referring to a moment in history when his ancestors and community were being coerced to give up their culture and traditional practices in order to embrace Christianity.

Provocations

• Read the quotes from Greg Semu and jot down key words related to the themes and intent of his work.
• Spend a minute quietly looking at Semu’s photograph Auto-portrait with twelve disciples. How would you describe your initial response to this work of art?
  
  
• Take a closer look at Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. What are some of the connections between Semu and da Vinci’s works of art, for example: composition, atmosphere, power dynamics and artistic intent.
• Semu chooses to speak about his work in terms of ‘hijacking’⁸ rather than appropriation. Discuss what the word ‘hijacking’ might mean in general, and in the context of Semu’s work. Watch the video of Greg Semu’s Artist Talk for further insights.
  

• Why are concepts such as ‘first contact’ often written or told from the perspective of colonisers? How does Semu shift the power dynamic? Why do you think it is important to look at history through Semu’s lens?
• What role do archives play in the way history is told and understood? Are tattoos and the body a form of cultural archive? Is this work of art a form of archive?

Artmaking prompts

• What are the stories or histories that you grew up with?
  Who told these stories and from what perspective? Were these stories presented as subjective or objective, fact, fiction or belief? How did you relate to these stories and how did they shape your worldview?
• Select one story or history that you’ve grown up with. Revisit the narrative and write a list of questions that could generate an alternate perspective or telling. For example, does the story suggest further untold stories? How would your understanding of key events change if a different protagonist was centred?
• Create a work of art that highlights an untold story or brings a new perspective to an established narrative. Consider what medium will be best suited to the story that you want to tell, for example your work of art could be a staged photograph or video, a spoken word performance, or a journal documenting your research.
• Consider what existing imagery is connected to the story you are investigating and what it would mean to revise, appropriate or ‘hijack’ this imagery.
• When appropriating imagery from other artists, be sure to ask ethical questions, such as who created this work of art? Whose story is it? May I use ideas from this work of art and do I need permission to do so? And always respect First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property rights and protocols.
• Work collaboratively to curate a class exhibition and investigate digital methods of sharing your research and stories with audiences.