Quarantine Islands (2021) by Yuki Kihara

The photographic series features myself performing in the guise of a fictitious persona named 'Salome' - a Sāmoan woman resurrected from the 19th century, inspired by a photograph entitled ʻSāmoan Halfcaste’ (1886) taken by New Zealand colonial photographer Thomas Andrew. I use photography to capture heightened moments in ephemeral performances, which re-frame dominant histories and bring into the present (often) untold narratives.

The Quarantine Islands (2021) series is an extension of 'Mass Grave, Vaimoso' (2013/2014) in which Salome visits the site where Sāmoa buried close to one fifth of its population (approximately 8500 people) who died from the 1918 influenza pandemic brought there by the Talune, a trader ship that left Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

The series explores how the colonial perception of an island being peripheral, distant, isolated, remote and undeveloped (as alluded to in ʻOur Sea of Islands’ by Fijian Tongan writer Epeli Hauʻofa), was a highly sought after strategic location for maintaining and sustaining ʻmainland’ interests. The series depicts Salome visiting islands located near Aotearoa New Zealandʻs main ports which were formerly used to quarantine people and animals with contagious diseases. Quarantine Islands (2021) series uncovers the history and the hidden cost behind the management of deadly viruses, and considers what wisdom the stories of these islands may offer in the post-Covid 19 era.