Kristelle Plimmer Essay

Tatau: welcome to their world
Kristelle Plimmer

Winner 2003 Chartwell Trust Student Art Writing Prize.

 Stepping into the Adam Art Gallery on a Thursday afternoon during the semester break was a paradoxical experience that was furthered by the art on view. Empty spaces where one's footsteps echoed in the silence enhanced the sense of dislocation evident in the work. The combination of colourful imagery that conveys both cultural riches, and the hollow spaces where identity is incomplete, means that Tatau is an exhibition that raises more questions than it answers. It invites contemplation on the nature of art and cultural appropriation. Generated within the context of an international conference on the cross-cultural influences of tatau, or tattoo, from colonial times to the present, it looks at the art of pe'a and malu, traditional Samoan tatau. The exhibition is in two parts: Pe'a: photographs by Mark Adams and Measina Samoa: stories of the malu by Lisa Taouma, a video presentation commissioned by the Adam Art Gallery specifically for this exhibition.

The photographs are large, glossy, and mostly colour prints that take the viewer in to the world of tatau as it has been documented by Mark Adams since the late 1970s. Images of hands stretching and holding the skin of the recipient as the tufuga tatatu, (tattoo artist), does his work with au (tattooing comb) and ink, and the solo, his assistant, wipes away the blood; men standing to show off their achievement, and to gain a pe'a is an achievement, with the blood dripping down their newly inked thighs and buttocks, a folded lavalava their only item of clothing.  Quiet pictures of dignity and pain endured, men looking out at you as they stand in their living rooms displaying more than just a tattoo, but a sense of pride and cultural identity that goes deeper than the ink into the skin.

It is a visceral process but what strikes the eye, almost more than the graphic nature of the image, is the mise en scene. These photographs are taken in the homes of the subjects. They stand in their living rooms, surrounded by the appurtenances and detritus of contemporary life, from china cabinets and rumpled sofas to overflowing ashtrays and empty beer bottles with, in most cases, the television set prominently situated. Yet on the floors are the woven mats they have bought from Samoa and on the walls hang family photos, lei and shell necklaces. The men wear mostly lavalava. It is nearly all men in these pictures. Pe'a is a male experience and women feature rarely and only in a  supporting role.

This sense of cultural dislocation is enhanced in the photographs taken in the Netherlands. In Auckland a pe'a seems appropriate, a part of the culture if not the whole of it. But in Amsterdam surrounded by tribal artifacts from all over the Pacific, including human remains, it bespeaks primitivism and a type of cultural appropriation that a more culturally sensitive society would shun. The subject has no such qualms and he has assumed a pose amongst the artefacts he sells at his Authentic Tribal Arts gallery. His tattoos are not only Samoan but from Borneo and the Marquesas as well as others by
European tattooists. Equally disconcerting are the two pictures of a couple in their home in Eindhoven.   They lounge on their couch watching television, their children's toys scattered on the floor, and they, virtually naked, displaying their bodies decorated with the art of a distant culture. On one level it seems weird and superficial, encapsulating the notion of culture as an international consumable. On another it conveys a sense of longing and the deep need for cultural identity that is not always met in contemporary Western society.

 The photographs that depict the International Tattooing Convention in Samoa in 2001 bring many of these people together and, outside in the sunshine of Samoa, their tattoos seem more acculturated, more in keeping. Tatau cannot, by its nature, be a wholly private act, yet the photos that depict its application and display in the home have an aura of voyeurism about them that is dispelled when coconut palms against a blue sky provide the backdrop.

 Lisa Taouma's video, Measina Samoa: stories of the malu is less graphic although the soft focus and multiple images of disembodied legs give a different message of the meaning and nature of tatau. The women who talk about their reasons for choosing to undergo the experience offer a broader understanding of the cultural context that is not provided by the photographs. They speak of their feelings of pride, of family, of the importance of continuing a tradition and of the sense of identity that is an integral part of the malu, so that when they show off their legs it is not sexual, or not only that, but an essential part of their femaleness. Malu is about power and strength as well as the beautiful patterns that carry myth and meaning. There are no images of bleeding thighs here, no hands pulling, stretching and supporting. That seems unnecessary - blood and femininity are too often associated. Here the women dance and express their joy.

 The sounds of the video do not carry and the rest of the gallery is silent. The photographs are devoid of the music and vibrancy that are so much a part of  our experience of Polynesian culture - they are intent and  their energy is inward. The emptiness of the white cube that is the Adam Art Gallery serves this silence well - the sense is of pain endured, of cultural dislocation, of not being completely fluent in the language and therefore, there is a danger perhaps, of being misunderstood. This is present in all the images, but especially in the tattooed Europeans, who are crossing boundaries to participate in a different culture, always a painful experience. At the same time, there is an air of unease about their pictures that is not present in the images of Samoan people - tatau is their culture and they are prepared to suffer for it. After the pain comes the pride and the sense of knowing who you are in the world - it is embedded in your skin, inked into your flesh. The dislocation is of place, not of identity. Tatau becomes a cultural security blanket that protects the bearer from the uncertainty of their European counterparts whose tattoo, however heartfelt, will necessarily be seen as appropriated and therefore no more than skindeep.

 Dislocation is the overriding paradox of this exhibition, which simultaneously questions the currents that carry culture across borders and yet provides a means of furthering this interaction. It is a thought provoking contribution to a continuing debate. The role of the curators and the Adam Art Gallery as both agent and agent provocateur should not be discounted.

        Kristelle Plimmer