Aoteaʻula (2021-26) by yuki kihara
Artist statement
Aoteaʻula is a combination of two compound words: Aotearoa, the Indigenous name of the country of New Zealand, and ʻula, a Sāmoan name for garland. Aoteaʻula (2021-2026) is also a title of an ongoing photographic series featuring ʻula made from natural materials native to Aotearoa. The contemporary aesthetic fusion between Aotearoa and Moana Pacific cultures is commonly known as Pasifika – the indiginised term for ‘Pacific’.
Some of the native flora featured in Aoteaʻula series, however, were part of the specimens collected by botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander during Captain James Cook’s first expedition in the HMS Edevour, which arrived in Aotearoa between 1769 and 1770. As an adviser to King George III, Banks saw plants as key to making agriculture profitable both in England and in the colonies, including the Moana Pacific. This gave rise to industrial agriculture and indentured labour, known euphamistically as ʻblackbirding’. Thousands of labourers were shipped from Melenesia to plantations and mills in Queensland, Sāmoa and Aotearoa New Zealand.
On 20th May 1870, a group of 27 men from Sandwich Island (Efate) in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) arrived on a clipper schooner Lulu, which docked in Waitematā Harbour. These men were to work in flax mills around Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The men did not realise they were brought to Aotearoa as indentured labourers. It is believed that the captain of the ship bribed the chiefs to provide labourers for ‘a term of years’. After working for three years, the men were paid only ten pounds and recieved a few metal goods and blankets.
ʻUla is a symbolic gesture of love and respect thatʻs gifted to people as a way to create meaningful relationships. The Aoteaʻula series features 27 ʻula, all made from natural materials native to Aotearoa. Each ʻula is dedicated in memory of the 27 indentured labourers from Vanuatu who are also the first seasonal workers brought to Aotearoa in 1870. The title of each work refers to the Bislama (the national language of Vanuatu) translation of the numbers one through to twenty-seven. These numbers serve as a place holder until the names of the indentured labourers are offically recovered. Through this gesture, Aoteaʻula series hopes to restore the manaakitanga (love and compassion) for the indentured labourers with ‘ula from Aotearoa.
Milford Galleries will present the first six works from the Aoetaʻula series at the Aotearoa Art Fair between the 16th and 20th of November 2022. Subsequent works from Aoetaʻula (2021-2026) series will be presented in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.