Cling to the Sea

In this work I wanted to reveal the intangible connections, hidden voices, and shared histories contained in MOA’s collection, specifically an upeti (Samoan pattern tablet used in bark cloth production) from the Museum’s founding collector, Frank Burnett.

Upeti (tapa printing board), Samoan, collected by Frank Burnett between 1895 and 1927. 76.2 cm L x 33.7 cm W. MOA object number C5.

It was the donation of Burnett’s vast and wide ranging collections that founded MOA. Burnett and his collections took on a new importance to me, as this was the start of my relationship with MOA, its Pacific collections, and its visitors. I am personally interested in the rupture that was formed between the exchange of people after contact and what happens to an object when it enters the realm of the museum space. I feel the relationship has to be preserved as much as the physical object so that future relationships can create living legacies, rather than a simple exploration of material culture from the past.

Frank Burnett was an interesting character. He was an immigrant, farmer, businessman, seaman, published travel writer, photographer, amateur anthropologist, and serial collector of idols, but it wasn’t until I viewed a copy of his personal scrapbook that I also added dusky maiden pervert and occasional pirate to my list.

These images are not anything I hadn’t seen before, as they have been readily available to a global public since the late 1800s, but it certainly made me ponder Burnett’s motives when travelling to, writing about, and photographing the many peoples of the Pacific. My first reaction was to expose him/them…but I had to question this as well. It seemed to me that I would just be (re)presenting the unnamed, semi-nude, dusky maidens to the public view and there is already much written about the gaze, the colonized body, and the use of imagery to uphold scientific thought of the time. I did not want all this to be the focus of this particular work… though I can’t get it out of my mind, and as I read his books and learnt more about him, I started to engage with Frank and the collections in a much different way.

I am interested in the unrecognised histories (constructed or factual) that are revealed when people and objects come together. In the Pacific, cloth is an important part of binding people together, as bark cloth has been part of this process for untold generations. In order to keep the legacy of Frank Burnett’s contact with the Pacific active and relevant to the present, I wanted to establish a Va (Samoan word for space) relationship between Frank, the collections, and myself, creating a shared space where we all come together to reactivate, reinvigorate, retranslate, and reciprocate in the act of creating new narratives for his collections and the museum.

Va adheres time to space. This space is not a linear space, or indeed an empty one, but rather the ‘Va’ space is activated by people, binding people and objects together, forming relationships and reciprocal obligations. The ConVAsation is one aspect of the work, the ActiVAtion is another part.

The main body of Cling to the Sea is a poem. My next issue was how to present a poem in a gallery space where words are not usually considered the main art form, but rather are a practice associated with performance work and used to explain the work to visitors.

For me the poem is just a series of words, and the ‘upeti’ just another object to be found in the holdings of the museum, until I have activated this space through my presence. My Polynesian body is the vessel for the ancestor, the space where the genealogical matter comes together, binding the past with the present.

So when I meet taonga, in this case the upeti, I activate a space between the past and the present: I enable them to be present. This in turn activates the ‘mauri’ (the spark of life, which sustains existence and form). It is my presence that brings the upeti, Frank, and me together, binding us to each other, creating a living dynamic which can be then taken out of the spatial confines of the box or case.

I am the muse
I am the dusky maiden
I am the savage
I am the ancestor
I am the upeti
I am the museum

- Rosanna Raymond