Door Bitch (2001)
‘Door Bitch 2001’ (2023) by Yuki Kihara. Plastic doll, fabric and mixed media. 370mm (H) x 140mm (W). Part of ‘BERTHA’ (2023) exhibition by Yuki Kihara curated by Natalie King. Commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum Ultimo, Sydney. Courtesy of Yuki Kihara and Milford Galleries, Aotearoa New Zealand. Photo courtesy of Gui Taccetti.
“This photo was taken in 2001 during a performance in Bondi for a Gay Games Fundraiser for a Pacific Islanders collective of LGBT. We were asked to perform at a lot of fundraisers, always for free to help various community groups. Invited by Aunty Linda McDonald, our Cook Island matriarch, our posse of Samoan Fa’afafine Sydney drag queens performed for the event, at which our Maori Matriarch and renowned Transexual, Carmen Rupe presided.
By this point, I had been in Sydney since July 1998. Bertha had started her performing at Annie’s Bar in Bourke St, Surry Hills, in a one drag queen show with weekly guest artists following a long stint as door bitch/hostess at the Stonewall Hotel from 1999, facilitated by Ricca Paris, a Fa’afafine and Sydney icon, whom I’d met in NZ years before.
My mother, Molipopo Iusitini Samu, died 7 April 2000. She was always excited to see Bertha on TV. One might even suggest she accepted Bertha more than Gay Harold. She even catered for an HIV awareness conference that I facilitated which saw the birth of the community group AFA. At the death of my friends to AIDS or suicide, she fronted up on all occasions with food and support. I never once thought she would die when she received a prognosis of breast cancer. Being away from home when she died is my greatest regret in life. I hadn’t actually returned to NZ, since I left in 1998, until I went home for her funeral.
My Dad, Lila Samu, died 3 years later of, I say, a broken heart. Motivated by the regret of not seeing my mum prior to her death, I managed to get home to Mangere in Auckland a few times a year before his death.”
-BERTHA aka Harold Samu