The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

167 ARTISTS Dark Continent 2018 Digital print on paper, ed. 1/3 / 236 x 168cm (sheet) / Purchased 2018 with funds from the bequest of Jennifer Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Photograph: Zan Wimberley / Image courtesy: The artist Born 1972, Sydney, Australia Lives and works in Sydney In a white cube gallery space in urban Sydney, Latai Taumoepeau slowly stretches and contorts her body into a variety of sustained poses. Each pose enables her to apply artificial colouring solution to a portion of her exposed skin using a small electric compression gun. The spray also marks the walls of the space she occupies. As she applies colour in slow movements, at regular intervals over a period of 48 hours, her skin grows darker. A camera shutter clicks, capturing her changing gestures and environment. 1 Latai Taumoepeau describes herself as a punake : a Tongan term referencing performance artists, such as dancers, who use the body as their medium. Her performance background was nurtured in the villages of her Tongan motherland, as well as in the suburban church halls, nightclubs and academic institutions of her birthplace in the Eora nation (Sydney). Drawing inspiration from her Tongan heritage, Taumoepeau often situates her practice within the sociopolitical landscape of Australia and the wider Oceanic region, engaging with issues of race, class and the female body, as well as the environment and sustainability. As its title suggests, the performance of Dark Continent 2018, and accompanying photographic stills, negotiates the politics of race, colour and power in Australia. Before the dangers of UV exposure to the sun became widely known, a golden tan was considered the epitome of physical beauty for white Australians; the bronzed sunbaker of European heritage, made famous by photographer Max Dupain, remains an iconic national symbol of freedom and lifestyle. By depicting the artificial tanning of a woman of colour, Dark Continent references Dupain’s image, while drawing attention to Indigenous Australians and dark-skinned migrants, two groups, who, historically, have not been represented in the national imagination. Tattooing, or any marking of the skin with ink, is an art form in Tonga, and a deeply painful and spiritual process for the recipient. Black ink is marked on the brown body, creating lines and negative spaces. This intersection of black and brown, line and space, creates patterns that are believed to bring forth genealogical connections that form the foundation of a person’s identity. The endurance required to receive the marks links the wearer directly to their ancestors. Echoing this process in urban Australia, Taumoepeau embarks on an equally physical process of endurance to establish a line of connection to this place. The slow and obviously unnatural transformation of her brown skin, via the almost absurd act of continued spraying, raises questions around national identity and the ‘marking’ of different bodies. Taumoepeau’s practice consciously explores Tongan philosophical ideas of art and reality, known as tā-vā (time- space). In the tā-vā theory of art, performance ( faiva ) is concerned with creating intersecting lines and spaces through bodily movement to bring about a sense of symmetry and harmony. 2 In addition to moving the body to reach tricky spots and achieve an all-over tan, the slow, deliberate and almost meditative movements Taumoepeau enacts in Dark Continent were choreographed to mark time and space in the ways that created the order and beauty of tā-vā . The photographic documentation, like the performance, is carefully choreographed so that it cannot be viewed easily from one position or point in time. Viewers are required to move their body to engage with the performance’s narrative in the multiple photographs, and to continually alter their viewing distance and perspective. The act of looking itself becomes tactile as the eye is drawn across the surface of each print via spaces of dark and light. Through this choreography, Latai Taumoepeau invites her viewers to engage in a process that generates an awareness of place and relativity in the body. These images also make us aware of the excess spray Taumoepeau leaves on her surrounding environment, suggesting, perhaps, a seeping of colour into the otherwise white landscape of the Australian art world. Ruth McDougall Endnotes 1 The performance of Dark Continent was staged as part of ‘48HR Incident: Mass Group Incident’ at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 29–31 May 2015. 2 For a more detailed explanation of the tā-vā theory of art, see Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai and Hūfanga Dr ‘Okusitino Māhina, ‘Ngatu tā’uli: A royal barkcloth’, in Threads: Contemporary Textiles and the Social Fabric [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2011, p.51. Latai Taumoepeau