Week 5 July 30 - Aug 4

Module 5.4: Paradise Camp

Contents:

Beyond Gender: Indigenous Perspectives, Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama from Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, "Beyond Gender: Indigenous Perspectives, Fa'afafine and Fa'afatama.

In fact, numerous Indigenous communities around the world do not conflate gender and sex; rather, they recognize a third or more genders within their societies. Individuals that identify as a third gender many times have visible and socially recognizable positions within their societies and sometimes are thought to have unique or supernatural power that they can access because of their gender identity. However, as European influence and westernized ideologies began to spread and were, in many cases, forced upon Indigenous societies, third genders diminished, along with so many other Indigenous cultural traditions. Nevertheless, the cultural belief and acceptance of genders beyond a binary system still exist in traditional societies around the world. In many cases, these third gender individuals represent continuing cultural traditions and maintain aspects of cultural identity within their communities.

Within a Western and Christian ideological framework, individuals who identify as a third gender are often thought of as part of the LGBTQ community. This classification actually distorts the concept of a third gender and reflects a culture that historically recognizes only two genders based on sex assigned at birth—male or female—and anyone acting outside of the cultural norms for their sex may be classified as homosexual, gender queer, or transgender, among other classifications. In societies that recognize a third gender, the gender classification is not based on sexual identity, but rather on gender identity and spirituality. Individuals who identify with a cultural third gender are, in fact, acting within their gender/sex norm.

Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama, Samoa

Image of a Taupou Fa'afafine Artist by Milena Acosta

Many third gender individuals hold integral roles within societies and are well respected for their strength, hard work, and ability to discuss taboo topics. On the island of Samoa, there are four recognized cultural genders: female, male, fa’afafine, and fa’afatama. Fa’afafine and fa’afatama are fluid gender roles that move between male and female worlds. These third and fourth gender groups tend to care for elders in the community and educate others about sex, a topic considered taboo in public conversations for male and female genders.

One of the lasting cultural performances both preserved and revamped by fa'afafine and fa'afatama is the dance of the taupou. The taupou, or ceremonial hostess typically selected by the high chief in the village, is charged with representing and entertaining visitors. Traditionally, the taupou's dignity and grace expressed the ideals of appropriate female behavior. These displays were particularly favored by Christian missionaries that idealized the taupou's "virginal" and virtuous qualities. Today, when fa'afafine and fa'afatama participate in pageants, they will sometimes take on the role of the taupou, displaying grace and femininity while also making a caricature of the Christian-colonial ideal through sexual humor and body language. This take on the taupou's performance demonstrates the unique ability for fa'fafine and fa'afatama to transcend gender roles and leverage their skills to open the door for discussion on taboo subject through humor.

As ceremonial hosts, taupou wear traditional Samoan dress, such as the ʻie tōga which is a finely woven mat worn tightly wrapped around the body. These mats traditionally have unwoven fringe at the edge and a strip of red feathers.

Crucial to the outfit is the ula nifo, a whale tooth necklace, a status symbol usually restricted to chiefs and their offspring, and likely an element held over from the days when the taupou was only performed by the virgin daughter of a chief. This necklace is made of sliced sperm whale teeth, and it was collected in Fiji in the 1890s. At that time the collector noted, “this ornament has the same relative value as a diamond necklace…” indicating that this type necklace was highly prized by many Polynesian cultures.

Miss Samoa Fa'afafine 2018–2019, Barbara Tino Tiufea Vaa.

Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama still thrive today.

In today’s dances, the taupou will carry a lightweight replica of a nifo‘oti, a large club modeled after cane knives of early nineteenth-century English and American whalers. Carrying these during the dance is reminiscent of pre-battle performances where heirloom clubs were artfully twirled and thrown to demonstrate the warrior’s prowess. This club was collected in Samoa between 1908–1910.

Today, one of the ways fa’afafine and fa’afatama contribute to the care of elders is by participating in the popular beauty pageants whose proceeds go to charities like Mapuifagalele, Western Samoa’s home for the aged. In these pageants, fa’afafine and fa’afatama often perform the dance of the taupou. The portrayal by fa’afafine and fa’afatama of taupou in these beauty pageants carries a different kind of message than when it was traditionally performed by the virgin daughter of a chief; however, the grace, beauty, and poise of the taupou continues to be the core message of the dance.

Further Reading

Samoan Queer Lives looks at the experiences of fa’afafine living in Samoa and beyond from the 1940s to the present day through autobiographical stories. The book is written by and edited by fa`afafine, Dan Taulapapa McMullin and Yuki Kihara, and includes personal stories that cross lines of gender, culture, professions and geography. Author royalties are donated as a fundraiser for Samoan Faafafine Organization in Apia, independent Samoa, and for SOFIA the fa`afafine association in Pago Pago, American Samoa.

Paradise Camp at the Venice Biennale

Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara at the Venice Biennale

Promotional poster for Paradise Camp

The artist Yuki Kihara (b. 1975), who is of Japanese and Samoan descent, brought some tropical sunshine and more than a flash of gender political heat into the gloomy depths of Venice’s Biennale (one of the world's most significant art fairs, where countries from across the world showcase their leading contemporary artists), with a presentation that foregrounded queer rights, small island ecologies, and decolonization, among other hot topics.

As the first artist to represent New Zealand in Venice who identifies as Pasifika, Asian and fa’afafine (Samoan for someone who is born male but presents “in the manner of a woman”), Kihara is pulling no punches. Her installation, Paradise Camp, was inspired by an essay by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku that was presented at a Paul Gauguin Symposium in 1992, at the Auckland Art Gallery, drawing attention to the sexual ambiguity of some of the characters so vividly evoked by Gauguin. Kihara has repaid the compliment by staging photos inspired by Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings, using sites and people of Samoan origin, to reflect those similarities and celebrate Gauguin’s recognition of non-western and non-binary beauty. These are on show in Venice, as is a new film, also called Paradise Camp. Shot on location in Upolu Island, Samoa, it features a local cast and crew, mostly drawn from the the fa’afafine community, and its various chapters include one segment that playfully interrogates indigenous vs. colonial attitudes to art and culture, featuring a group of “ordinary Samoans” who end up mocking and deconstructing the kind of white cultural tropes that are taken for granted in Europe, but are unfamiliar in Samoan art education.

Kihara, who works across photography, film, performance, curation and installations, studied fashion design at Wellington Polytechnic (now Massey University). While she was still a student, the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, purchased a work of hers, a rare accolade. The work was Graffiti Dress — Bombacific, which blended 26 T-shirts featuring corporate logos into one fabulous creation. In 2008, she had a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Entitled Living Photographs, it explored the exotic poses and tableaus captured by 19th-century colonial and non-indigenous photographers, such as Thomas Andrew and Alfred John Tattersall, which had helped to spread inaccurate stereotypes about Pacific islanders and their culture, many of which still prevail. [Recall our study of Gottfried Lindauer's portraits of the Māori from Week 7. What overlapping themes and issues are present in Yuki Kihara's works?]

Kihara’s work is now in the MoMA collection, the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the British Museum and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan.

Take some time to explore documentation of Paradise Camp. The website, video, and exhibition catalogue below will give you an overview of Kihara's exhibition. In looking through the media below, consider the following:

icon Visit an online version of Paradise Camp at this Virtual Explore site.

In the video below, Yuki Kihara, who is of mixed Japanese and Samoan heritage, talks about showcasing queer rights and revealing the toxic influence of colonialism in her works.

Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp – Venice Bienniale 2022

Theorizing Paradise Camp

Take a look through the Paradise Camp exhibition catalogue at the link below, which considers a number of relevant theoretical and cultural questions that the exhibition raises.

icon Nancy King, ed., Paradise Campy by Yuki Kihara (Port Melbourne: Thames and Hudson, 2022).

The publication includes the following short articles:

Art History in context

To get a full grasp of Paradise Camp's relevance, it's important to understand how it responds to the history of art. Kihara references and critiques works by the influential post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, such as Two Tahitian Women. Take a look at Gauguin's painting and consider how Kihara's work responds to it.

icon Paul Gauguin, Two Tahitian Women at the Met Museum