Whakaahua: The pressure of sunlight falling
2010 Photographic Residency
Whakaahua:
- 1. (verb) (-tia) to acquire form, to transform, to form, to shape, to portray, to photograph, to film
- 2. (noun) photograph, illustration, portrait, image, shot (photograph).
s an extension to her work presented at the Biennale of Sydney in 2010 (Ahua: A Beautiful Hesitation), Fiona Pardington has chosen to explore the collections of major French institutions and national collections: through life casts and death casts, she seeks to image how European explorers were seen by the people they colonised – scrutinising them in the same way they themselves were scrutinised.
“This project will allow me to use casts and sculpture in order to come full circle in a way: just as the French colonialists observed the faces of the peoples of Oceania in the 19th century, I myself will journey, as a humble yet intrepid representative of the Ngai Tahu people of Aotearoa, to the French shores to stare expectantly at the many faces of colonised races and those of the French people in their many incarnations. I truly believe that not only do the life casts of the Māori and the Pacific peoples reflect the diversity of New Zealand and the Pacific at a certain moment in their history, but also that the photos of all these casts that I intend to take to France will serve as a radiant point to explore the different cultural attitudes to this history and towards portraiture as a discipline.”
Series produced in 2010.
