BERTHA (2023) by yuki kihara
Artist Statement
BERTHA (2023) is my new work presented during the exhibition Paradise Camp, curated by Natalie King and commissioned by Powerhouse Museum Ultimo.
The commission features racialized, vintage Pacific dolls that I have collected from thrift stores and ebay over the years that have been ‘upcycled’ and repurposed to tell a larger-than-life drag story. BERTHA, otherwise known as Harold Samu, has played an active role in the gay nightlife and HIV/AIDS activism in the 1990’s in Aotearoa New Zealand. Harold later moved to Gadigal land Sydney Australia in early 2000 and continues to be involved in the queer community in various capacities.
In the series, I worked closely with Samu to design and recreate costumes previously worn by Bertha that capture moments in Samu’s dynamic life that are subsequently worn and represented by each doll. Ranging from a doll entitled Law Reform Girl 1986 (2023) featuring a copper coloured coat worn by Bertha during a march which celebrated the decriminalization of the Homosexual Law Reform bill; to a doll entitled Eaten Alive 1998 (2023) where Bertha co-hosted a tv game show; and a doll entitled Fa’afafines at the Sydney Opera House 2009 2023 where Bertha performed alongside a line-up of Sydney’s best drag performers during a Christmas show at the Sydney Opera House.
BERTHA (2023) is an extension of my previous series entitled A night to remember (2022) featuring similar dolls dressed in evening gowns worn by contestants at the first Miss Samoa Fa’afafine beauty pageant held in 1983 in Sāmoa. Based on the recollection of Venerable Fa’afafine Elder Galumalemana Alfred ‘Freda’ Waterhouse, she was one of the contestants on the night of the pageant. Both works aim to preserve Fa’afafine theirstories, a strategy that I adopted in my co-edited publication entitled Samoan Queer Lives co-edited by Dan Taulapapa McMullin.
During this second activation of Paradise Camp opening on Thursday 24th August 2023, both Bertha and her doll will be dressed in their latest creation entitled Over the Rainbow 2023 partly inspired by the siapo or the Samoan barkcloth in the Powerhouse Museum collection.
In the Pacific generally and Sāmoa specifically, the act of wrapping is to imbue mana or supernatural force into an object. Similarly, by stripping the dolls of their former costume and wrapping them in drag outfits drawn from Samu’s life experience breathes new meaning and mana into the dolls.