68HANAHIVAROSE
EdithAmituanaiis capturingtheworldasit happens.
Hersareimagesthatrespondtothetimes,andin
doingsoachievea remarkabletimelessness;images
which reflect on the eternityof the in-between.And
what times to choose:best of, worst of, the end of
theworld.Thesearetimesinwhichourinteriorand
exteriorlives have becomeincreasinglyblurred;
in which the imagingand reimagingof identity
has been repeatedlyand dividedlycontested.And
yetAmituanai’simagescircle these concernswith
a distinctwariness.It is as if she is determinedto
documentnot the momentof impact,the crashing
of the wave on the shore, but rather its far-reaching
effects on the beach, that ‘unresolvedplace where
thingscanhappen,wherethingscanbemadeto
happen’.^1 To retain the remarkableimpact of these
images,thereis limiteddistinctionbetweenthe
subjects’memoryand their present,the reflected
and the real, the performedand the candid.In an
interviewwith EdwardHanfling,publishedby this
magazinein 2009,Amituanaiis asked: ‘You think that
artshouldhavea widerresonancethanjustbeing
about art?’ She respondswith another question: ‘I
hope so, don’t you think?’^2
On the eveningof Friday 5 July, the first Tautai First
Friday to take place outsideofAuckland was held in
Wellingtonat theAdamArt Gallery Te Pataka Toi. A
readingof Victor Rodger’splayUma Lava closed off
the night’s celebrations.^3 The play, inspired by Jean-
Paul Sartre’sNoExit, hasa premise that sounds like
the beginningof a bad joke: one palangi and three
Samoanswalkintoa room.Theroom, a hotel room,
is theirs for eternity.Hell, we need no reminding, is
otherpeople.
The readingwas backdroppedby Amituanai’s
photography,on displayat theAdam in the
retrospectiveof her work,EdithAmituanai: Double
Take, curatedbyAne Tonga. Directly behind the actors
performingUmuLavahungthreeimages: Blue Lagoon,
from the seriesNorthof theFuture(2008); Francine,
fromMillennial(2008);andRoband Harry, from Ioka
(2004). Each depictsan empty interior: scenes from
Alaska,Samoa,and New Zealandrespectively.
Despitetheir geographicdistancefrom one another,
the interiorsshare an aestheticsensibility that marks
them as identifiablyPacific,or identifiably inhabited
by Pacific people.
One of the charactersinUmaLava takes issue with
a tapa cloth hung on the wall of the hotel room in
which the scene is set. He tries, unsuccessfully, to ripThe Wider Village
Edith Amituanai at the Adam Art Gallery
EdithAmituanaiDoubleTake
AdamArt GalleryTe Pataka Toi
11 May–14July, curatedbyAne Tonga