borderzones.ca: The Ideas Behind the Exhibit | Artists' Files

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.

- Rosanna Raymond

To accompany her installation Cling to the Sea, Rosanna Raymond created a performance piece, SaVAge K'lub, in which she spoke back to the legacy of MOA’s founding collector, Frank Burnett, and the conception of Pacific women and cultures he helped to establish. Rosanna had discovered an invitation to a lecture given by Frank Burnett at Vancouver’s “Savage Club” in 1923, and her performance on January 26th, 2010 was a response and a challenge to that event and what it represented. She began her performance in MOA’s Great Hall, and then led the audience through the museum to the area showcasing the South Pacific collections. There she continued her performance through action and spoken word, “creating a shared space” to help revitalize the relationships between museumized objects and living people.

Invitation to Rosanna Raymond’s performance, *SaVAge K’lub* (altered version of the original invitation to Frank Burnett’s 1923 lecture)