Yuki Kihara

Learning Resource

Yuki Kihara, Fonofono o le Nuanua: Patches of the Rainbow (after Gauguin), 2020, chromogenic photographs, 139 x 375 cm (overall), National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2024 © Yuki Kihara

There is a direct social and political intent behind what I’m doing: it’s to take the power back from western canonical art history, to reclaim our place as an indigenous, third-gender community in the Pacific, who have been neglected not just socially, politically, culturally — but environmentally as well.1

Yuki Kihara

Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Sāmoan descent, born in Sāmoa in 1975, and currently working and living in Sāmoa. Through a research-based approach, her practice seeks to challenge dominant and singular historical narratives and their persistence in today’s 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. Through her work, Kihara considers themes of gender, racial and cultural identity, climate change and questions of power.

My work is deeply personal, reflective of my experience as a person of colour and Fa’afafine/Third gender. I make art to confront and overcome my insecurities, to decolonise from the Whiteness and Heteronormativity that’s pervasive in the creative industries that recycle and perpetuate these false values onto society.2

Yuki Kihara

Kihara represented Aotearoa New Zealand with her solo exhibition entitled Paradise Camp at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 to critical acclaim.

Fonofono o le Nuanua: Patches of the rainbow (After Gauguin)

Yuki Kihara, Fonofono o le Nuanua: Patches of the Rainbow (after Gauguin), 2020, chromogenic photographs, 139 x 375 cm (overall), National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2024 © Yuki Kihara

Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, 1897–98, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund

In Kihara’s work of art Fonofono o le Nuanua: Patches of the rainbow (After Gauguin), from her project Paradise Camp (2021), she seeks to remediate Western art history by repurposing and upcycling3 the composition of [AR1] Gauguin’s 1897–98 painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? .

The title of my work, however, is lifted from a poem by Sāmoa-based poet Reverend Ruperake Petaia, whose poem alludes to the Sāmoan concept of Vā fealoa‘i, which means to nurture the space between things: a space that connects and mediates relationships between people – and between people and nature. The poem ‘Fonofono o le nuanua (Patches of the rainbow)’ addresses Gauguin’s questions indirectly, especially in the context of sustainability.4

Yuki Kihara

Kihara’s first encounter with a painting by Gauguin was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008. Prior to this she had only seen reproductions of his works on pervasive paraphernalia such as mugs, tea towels and clothing garments, raising questions about who profits from imagery of Te Moana Nui (Pacific Ocean) and who has the right to present it to the world. For more than a century Gauguin had been the most prominent artistic voice visually representing the region, despite being a cultural outsider.

Paradise Camp is essentially the fa’afafine version of what our paradise could be, which is inclusive, diverse and sensitive to the changes of nature and the environment.5

Yuki Kihara

Even though others might see the rainbow as a reference to the gay pride movement, my intention is to highlight the syncretic spirituality in Sāmoa that fuses a Sāmoan Indigenous world view and Christianity. In the Sāmoan context, the rainbow symbolises a portal into the spiritual world.6

Yuki Kihara

To understand the context of this work of art, it is important to know about Sāmoan culture’s pre-colonial relationship with gender identity. As Kihara explains, “In Samoa there are four culturally recognised genders. There’s tane, which is a word to describe cisgender men; there’s fa fine, which is a cisgender woman; and there is fa’afafine, meaning in the manner of a woman, that is used to describe those like myself: biologically assigned male at birth who express their gender in a feminine way. And we also have fa’atama, which is in the manner of a man, used to describe those assigned female at birth, who express their gender in a masculine way.”7 Currently in Sāmoa, fa’afafine and fa’atama are culturally and socially recognised as being unique genders but they are not recognised under the country’s policies or legislation. Kihara is part of the fa’afafine community and so are the subjects she portrays.

Whenever I make work, I always think about who I want to empower. I think that for too long we [the fa’afafine] have been sidelined, marginalised, exploited, undervalued.8

Yuki Kihara

Provocations

  • Read the quotes from Yuki Kihara and jot down key words related to the themes and intent of her work.
  • Spend a minute quietly looking at Kihara’s photograph Fonofono o le Nuanua: Patches of the Rainbow (after Gauguin). How would you describe your initial response to this work of art?

  • Next, take a closer look at Gauguin’s painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. What are some of the connections and differences between Kihara and Gauguin’s works of art, for example: composition, atmosphere, power dynamics, and artistic intent.
  • Kihara chooses to speak about her work in terms of ‘repurposing and upcycling’ rather than appropriation. Discuss what the words ‘repurposing’ and ‘upcycling’9 might mean in general, and in the context of Kihara’s work. Watch the video Making of ‘Paradise Camp’ by Yuki Kihara (full-length feature) on Vimeo from 32min 24sec – 33min 19sec for further insights from Kihara (in costume as Gauguin).

  • Kihara says, ‘Whenever I make work, I always think about who I want to empower.’ Considering the context of colonisation, gender politics and climate change, write a reflection, or discuss with a partner:
    – What does it mean to empower?
    – Do you think empowerment requires consent?
    – What forms can empowerment take when recontextualising the past?
  • Refer to the Human Dignity Trust Timeline outlining past and present legal discrimination against Fa’afafine and LGBTQI+ people in Sāmoa post colonisation. How is this context addressed in Kihara’s quotes and work of art?

Artmaking prompts

  • Who do you make art for?
    Do you identify as part of a community or communities, for example a school, neighbourhood/region, social, cultural, sport or interest group? What role does that community play in your life?
  • How does your experience of being part of a community align with the way it is commonly represented? Are there stereotypical images, terms or views that you would like to challenge?
  • How could you honour, empower, or give back to your community through a work of art? What form could your work of art take and why? For example, a work of art could be a physical object, but it could also be an action, a piece of writing, an installation or an experience that invites participation.
  • Consider how you could you consult, include, or collaborate with your community in the planning, creation and presentation or display of your work.