Undressing

Undressing the Pacific is a mid-career survey exhibition of Kihara’s art practice that spans a decade of her impressive career and draws attention to key works. The exhibition’s title reflects the centrality of dress in Kihara’s oeuvre. As well as referencing the importance of dress to Kihara’s practice, ‘undressing’ describes the way in which her works subvert historical cross-cultural representations of Pacific people and the framing of the landscape as a Pacific paradise. By interrogating late nineteenth and early twentieth century images of Samoan people and landscapes by European photographers, her works expose inequalities and complexities within the structures of power associated with sexuality, gender, race and colonialism in the Pacific.

Image credit: Roman Catholic Church, Apia, 2013 from the Where do we come from, What are we, Where are we going series, Yuki Kihara

Yuki Kihara

19 July – 9 November

Te Manawa, 326 Main Street, Palmerston North