Samoan artist Yuki Kihara says fa’afafine and fa’atama ‘here to contribute’

A Samoan fa’afafine artist says there’s a long way to go for Samoa’s rainbow community achieving equity.

Yuki Kihara, whose ‘Paradise Camp’ exhibition was displayed at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2022, has brought it back to Samoa.

The photographic series features Samoa’s fa’afafine and fa’atama models re-enacting a number of paintings by French artist Paul Gaughin.

Fa’afafine translates to ‘in the manner of a woman’ and is used to describe a person who at birth is assigned as male, but expresses their gender in a feminine way. Whereas fa’atama is used to describe a person who is assigned as female, expresses their gender in a masculine manner.

Kihara told Pacific Waves the exhibition will open up discussions that addresses issues confronting Samoa’s rainbow community.

“You know acknowledging the invisible labour of fa’afafine or fa’atama, and the contributions they make to their family extended family to the village, to the church, to the country and across the diaspora.”

Kihara said although Samoa’s rainbow community are culturally accepted, they remain a marginalised gender group in Samoan culture.

“On the context of natural disasters, we are expected to help others but we are left to fend for ourselves because our gender is not legally recognised and therefore our needs and our concerns are often ignored in climate change policies and legislation.

“This is where Paradise Camp comes to provide a fa’afafine and fa’atama utopia where people are no longer judged for their gender and sexuality and living in harmony with nature.”

The launch of the exhibition coincided with the country’s 62nd independence anniversary, a deliberate ‘symbolic gesture’ to acknowledge the little-known history of the introduction of the Crime Ordinance Act in 1961 that targeted the fa’afafine community.

Kihara explained that the act enforced laws that banned males impersonating females in public and a ban on homosexuality.

Any person that breached the laws were fined or could be imprisoned to up to six months.

“When the Crime Ordinance Act was introduced, many fa’afafines became self-imposed exiles and sought refuge in American Samoa.

“But that didn’t necessarily mean that fa’afafines in American Samoa [were] free because of the American occupation of American Samoa and how they [were] aggressively stamping down the Mau movements in Tutuila and Manu’a.”

The Paradise Camp exhibition is now showing at the Saletoga Sands Resort and Spa on the south coast on Upolu, Samoa.

Kihara hopes Paradise Camp does not just remain an exhibition, but becomes a reality.

“What I would like the audience in Samoa or to take away from the Paradise Camp exhibition is the visibility and the fa’afa-fabulousness of the community.

“We are here to contribute, always been contributing and can we all work towards where no one is judged for their gender and sexuality and we can finally live in harmony with nature.

“If we are able to treat ourselves better, then maybe perhaps we can actually treat the nature better.”