The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

One of Fiji’s largest exports is its men. These, and a significant group of women, are often militarised migrant workers for private security companies and other countries’ armies, particularly the British. Their remittances have a substantial impact on the lives of extended families and, consequently, the Fijian socio- economic fabric. Brought together for the first time, three artists give voice, pen and image to under-examined areas of militarism and gender in the Pacific, particularly in Fiji, to create an open- ended archive:Teresia Teaiwa’s poetry reflects on her research into three generations of Fiji women serving in the British Army and the Fiji Military Forces; Mat Hunkin illustrates the history of the 1 Commando Fiji Guerrillas, a unit of Pacific soldiers who fought alongside United States troops during World War Two in the Solomon Islands; and Torika Bolatagici’s images evoke omitted histories — both historical and recent — through the physical presence of male military personnel. Why did you choose the title {disarmed} imagining a Pacific archive? Teresia Teaiwa: The Pacific Islands as a whole are very rarely thought of as having militarised histories. So, when a place like Fiji develops a reputation at one point for its exemplary peacekeepers, and then on a recurring basis for its military coups and political instability, you get outsiders casting a whole culture in either benignly patronising or disparagingly pathological terms. I’m interested in finding out what’s possible, what’s there between those extreme poles of existing representations. We are disarming, not for the purpose of re-arming, but for reconnaissance, to use another military term. {disarmed} can hopefully create new ways of seeing, knowing and understanding processes of militarising in the Pacific. Can you comment on how you have used archives in making your work? Mat Hunkin: I used illustration as a means of negotiating the often disparate and sometimes conflicting records that informed the history of the 1 Commando Fiji Guerrillas. It provided a means for addressing absence in visual records of Pacific history. The aim was not for these visual narratives to be seen as an inclusion into the visual archives, nor as a visual summation of written records, but as a body of work encouraging audiences to read between the brief, condensed lines of this Pacific history, and expand these written probabilities into visual possibility. What interests you most about the women you interviewed and how do you respond to this curiosity in your poetry? Teresia Teaiwa: I’m still processing what I’ve learned from the Fiji women soldiers, demobbed and active, that I’ve interviewed (2008–10). What struck me most about their stories was how women’s and girls’ lives in Fiji across three generations seemed to have prepared them exceptionally well for the rigours of military life and the challenges of service overseas. I don’t over-intellectualise my poetry as I write it — I usually try to respond organically to stimuli. But I am hoping that my poetry conveys unexpected insights into not only the women’s experiences as soldiers, but my experience as a researcher. I’m trying to fill both emotional and historical gaps in popular memories of the military and Fiji. Can you detail the use of Fijian masi (barkcloth) in your ‘ Export Quality’ series? Torika Bolatagici: My intention was to raise questions about notions of absence and presence, visibility and invisibility, both literally in relation to bodily visibility in modern warfare, and figuratively in relation to spirituality and corporeality. The circular designs are from a large piece of masi that was presented to my mother and I (as her first-born) on our first visit back to my father’s Fijian village, Suvavou, in 1976. I make images to try and understand. And to understand contemporary events, I begin by looking back. So for me, it’s a constant process of piecing bits together, looking at the various ways that Fijians in the military have been discussed in historical documents, but more importantly, looking at the way that Fijians represent and document their own experiences. The new video works extend my project to bear witness to Fijian military identities and lived experiences by creating a conversation between the real and the imagined. The idea of the historical document and the artist’s interpretation exist together in a non-linear video montage that provides glimpses into the past and the present. Interviewed by Maud Page, August 2012. {disarmed} imagining a Pacific archive An interview 259