Marata Tamaira | The Australian National University (original) (raw)
Papers by Marata Tamaira
The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific is also available thro... more The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific is also available through ScholarSpace, a digital repository of the University of Hawai‘i library system, at
vi father was, whether he was in the wool shed shearing sheep, constructing fences in the rural b... more vi father was, whether he was in the wool shed shearing sheep, constructing fences in the rural backblocks of Taihape, or laboring in the meat works. My father never made it past high school, but the work ethic he instilled in me has been a source of sustenance and strength during this long and arduous undertaking. Ka nui toku aroha ki a koe, e Pāpā.
![Research paper thumbnail of Review of This IS Hawai‘i [exhibition], and Transformer [exhibition]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/92164482/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal, 2018
Nānā i ke kumu. Look to the source.-Hawaiian 'ōlelo no'eau (proverb) In the Hawaiian language the... more Nānā i ke kumu. Look to the source.-Hawaiian 'ōlelo no'eau (proverb) In the Hawaiian language the term 'ae kai refers to the place where land and sea meet, the water's edge or shoreline, the beach. It is, as Pacific historian Greg Dening has written, an "in-between space…an unresolved space where things can happen, where things can be made to happen. It is a space of transformation. It is a space of crossings." 1 This expanded definition of 'ae kai serves as a cogent touchstone for examining Adrienne Keahi Pao's and Robin Lasser's most recent installation work Dashboard Hula Girl: In Search of Aunty Keahi, which featured in the Smithsonian's Culture Lab exhibition 'Ae Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence in Honolulu, July 7-9, 2017. In the following writing, I invoke a sort of 'ae kai of my own in which I merge scholarly analysis with visceral first-hand experience of Dashboard Hula Girl. The result, I hope, is a richly textured exposé that simulates in written form the enigmatic domain that comprises the convergence zone-that is, the 'ae kai-of intellectual understanding and felt encounter. San Francisco-based artists Pao and Lasser have been combining their creative energies for well over a decade to produce their enigmatic "Dress Tent" installation and photographic series. 2 The dress tents, which manifest as large-scale interactive "garments" that are erected on site-specific landscapes and worn by female subjects, are in equal measure whimsically playful and incisively political. In what amounts to a fusion of architecture, sculpture, fashion, the body, and the land, the tents function as discrete spaces for addressing a wide range of contemporary issues, including identity, gender
The Contemporary Pacific, 2009
The Contemporary Pacific, 2017
The Contemporary Pacific, 2018
Since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the subsequent fraudulent annexat... more Since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the subsequent fraudulent annexation of the Islands by the United States in 1898, Native Hawaiians (Kānaka Maoli) have vigilantly contested US colonialism in Hawaiʻi and have resolutely sought to defend and affirm their existence as the still-sovereign people of their homeland through political, legal, cultural, and artistic means. While the first three kinds of indigenous resistance have been well documented in numerous books, journal articles, and theses, there remains a largely unexplored field of academic enquiry concerning the role of contemporary Kanaka Maoli art within this milieu. This article seeks to redress this shortfall by critically analyzing how Hawaiian artists use the discrete discursive space of public walls as semiotic slates to both affirm Native sovereignty and contest US colonialism. I explore sovereign artistic intervention as it is manifested in two wall projects: Ola Ka Wai, Ola Ka Honua by graffiti writers John “Prime” Hina and Estria Miyashiro and the Aloha ‘Āina mural by students, faculty, and community members at the University of Hawai‘i–Mānoa. As I show, these projects illuminate the power of public art to galvanize not only indigenous communities but also the broader public around contemporary and ongoing indigenous political concerns in Hawai‘i.
The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific is also available thro... more The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific is also available through ScholarSpace, a digital repository of the University of Hawai‘i library system, at
vi father was, whether he was in the wool shed shearing sheep, constructing fences in the rural b... more vi father was, whether he was in the wool shed shearing sheep, constructing fences in the rural backblocks of Taihape, or laboring in the meat works. My father never made it past high school, but the work ethic he instilled in me has been a source of sustenance and strength during this long and arduous undertaking. Ka nui toku aroha ki a koe, e Pāpā.
Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal, 2018
Nānā i ke kumu. Look to the source.-Hawaiian 'ōlelo no'eau (proverb) In the Hawaiian language the... more Nānā i ke kumu. Look to the source.-Hawaiian 'ōlelo no'eau (proverb) In the Hawaiian language the term 'ae kai refers to the place where land and sea meet, the water's edge or shoreline, the beach. It is, as Pacific historian Greg Dening has written, an "in-between space…an unresolved space where things can happen, where things can be made to happen. It is a space of transformation. It is a space of crossings." 1 This expanded definition of 'ae kai serves as a cogent touchstone for examining Adrienne Keahi Pao's and Robin Lasser's most recent installation work Dashboard Hula Girl: In Search of Aunty Keahi, which featured in the Smithsonian's Culture Lab exhibition 'Ae Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence in Honolulu, July 7-9, 2017. In the following writing, I invoke a sort of 'ae kai of my own in which I merge scholarly analysis with visceral first-hand experience of Dashboard Hula Girl. The result, I hope, is a richly textured exposé that simulates in written form the enigmatic domain that comprises the convergence zone-that is, the 'ae kai-of intellectual understanding and felt encounter. San Francisco-based artists Pao and Lasser have been combining their creative energies for well over a decade to produce their enigmatic "Dress Tent" installation and photographic series. 2 The dress tents, which manifest as large-scale interactive "garments" that are erected on site-specific landscapes and worn by female subjects, are in equal measure whimsically playful and incisively political. In what amounts to a fusion of architecture, sculpture, fashion, the body, and the land, the tents function as discrete spaces for addressing a wide range of contemporary issues, including identity, gender
The Contemporary Pacific, 2009
The Contemporary Pacific, 2017
The Contemporary Pacific, 2018
Since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the subsequent fraudulent annexat... more Since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the subsequent fraudulent annexation of the Islands by the United States in 1898, Native Hawaiians (Kānaka Maoli) have vigilantly contested US colonialism in Hawaiʻi and have resolutely sought to defend and affirm their existence as the still-sovereign people of their homeland through political, legal, cultural, and artistic means. While the first three kinds of indigenous resistance have been well documented in numerous books, journal articles, and theses, there remains a largely unexplored field of academic enquiry concerning the role of contemporary Kanaka Maoli art within this milieu. This article seeks to redress this shortfall by critically analyzing how Hawaiian artists use the discrete discursive space of public walls as semiotic slates to both affirm Native sovereignty and contest US colonialism. I explore sovereign artistic intervention as it is manifested in two wall projects: Ola Ka Wai, Ola Ka Honua by graffiti writers John “Prime” Hina and Estria Miyashiro and the Aloha ‘Āina mural by students, faculty, and community members at the University of Hawai‘i–Mānoa. As I show, these projects illuminate the power of public art to galvanize not only indigenous communities but also the broader public around contemporary and ongoing indigenous political concerns in Hawai‘i.