A Native of Samoa, Shigeyuki Kihara is an internationally recognized artist based between Sāmoa, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia. Working across a range of media including photography, performance, video and fashion, Kihara has built a comprehensive interdisciplinary body of work and curatorial practice that examines gender, representation, story-telling, landscape, dress, race, and colonialism in Oceania (the Pacific Islands). Undressing the Pacific, the title of her 2013 mid-career exhibition at the Hocken Library, University of Otago, references the artist’s use of dress as a key signifier of identity and reveals the body as a site of cultural inscription. Her work ‘undresses’ historical representations and European stereotypes of Samoa and their continuing circulation. She exposes the complex social, political, and economic factors at plea in the island nation, historically and in the present day. (Please see attached flyer.)
Sponsored by: Porter College, Cultural Arts and Diversity Resource Center, History of Art and Visual Culture, and Stevenson College.
We would like to make this event accessible to all.
For special accommodations, please contact Leilani Salvador at lsalvado@ucsc.edu
Refreshments will be served.
Public Lecture, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 5:00-6:30, Kresge Town Hall
Workshop, Thursday, Oct. 31, 12-2, Sesnon Gallery (Porter 236)
These events are free and open to the public.