‘Conveyance OF time’ (2024) by Yuki Kihara

Yuki Kihara introduced her alter ego ‘Salome’ in 2002, drawing the persona from an 1886 photograph by New Zealand colonial photographer Thomas Andrew titled Samoan half caste. Since then, this unforgettable, spectral presence, clad in Victorian mourning black, has featured in an ongoing series of works made in both Aotearoa and Sāmoa. 

Informed by Kihara’s own experiences as a Samoan-Japanese person who is also Fa’afafine, a term used in Indigenous Samoan society to describe someone who lives ‘in the manner of a woman’, this alternative identity is not bound by binaries or authorised narratives. As Salome, Kihara enters the Vā, a realm separated from time and space, in order to critique and reframe the impacts of colonisation. 

Named for the biblical figure who famously danced for John the Baptist, then called for his head, Salome is powerful, dangerous and protective of her own. Roman Catholic Church, Apia and After Tsunami Galu Afi, Lalomanu were made in Sāmoa, following the devastation of Cyclone Evan in 2012. With her back to us, Salome pulls our gaze to the ruined church – its roof wrenched away to leave it open to the sky – and out to the open sea. She bears witness to this recent tragedy and to Sāmoa’s longer history of loss through colonisation, and looks to the future. 

In Salome’s latest appearance, Conveyance of Time, she is not one, but many. In her flowing black crinoline, she moves across time and space like a queen on a chess board. She carries objects gathered from across time – an ava bowl, bible, navigational chart, and the planets Jupiter and Mars – as guides for the days to come.

Felicity Milburn
Lead curator 
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū Aotearoa New Zealand

Presentation of ‘Conveyance to time’ (2024) includes:

‘Dummies and Doppelgangers’
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Aotearoa New Zealand
2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025
www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz