2 pages reviews

“I ka wā mamua, ka wā mahope”

This Hawaiian proverb “I ka wā mamua, ka wā mahope” has been translated into English as “the future that lies in the past”, “the time in front” or “through the past is the future”. As Kanaka Maoli historian Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa noted in her book Native Land and Foreign Desires (2013), “Ka wā mamua” or “the time in front or before” denotes the past with “Ka wā mahope”, or “the time which comes after or behind” denoting the future. A similar proverb in te reo Māori reads “Ka mua ka muri” which is most commonly translated to “walking backward into the future”.

Time in this instance is not the linear time we have become so familiar with, which posits the past on one end with the future on the other. Instead here relates to Hawaiian and Māori conception of pasts and futures being interconnected. These definitions highlight the importance of the present moment for Kanaka Māoli with one’s back moving toward the future while embracing the richness and wisdom of the past, with the ultimate sentiment that we should look into the past to help us inform the actions of the present and the future.

The ability to imagine a future.

With notions of the future so readily woven into Hawaiian concepts of time—and other Indigenous Moana concepts of time for that matter—it is no wonder that there have been many generations of futurists in the Hawaiian Islands long before Captain James Cook first sighted the archipelago. It would be easy then to assume that this innate ability for radical imagination has remained unbroken across the islands, and yet to assume that would also involve undermining the seemingly irreversible and pervasive colonisation of that archipelago. The Hawaiian Kingdom was invaded by United States military forces in 1893, when they overthrew the Hawaiian rule under Queen Liliʻuokalani, outlawed ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi

The IMA is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Federal, State, and Territory Governments. The IMA is a member of Contemporary Art Organisations Australia.

the national language in 1896, and in 1900 became a territory of the United States. Since then Kanaka Maoli have suffered “massive depopulation, landlessness, christianization, economic and political marginalization, institutionalization in the military and the prisons, poor health and educational profiles.”1 Most recently corporate tourism has further commodified Kānaka Maoli culture and land. As Haunani-Kay Trask has written, “Burdened with commodification of our culture and exploitation of our people, Hawaiians now exist in an occupied country whose hostage people are forced to witness, and for many of us to participate in, our collective humiliation as tourist artifacts for the world's rich.”2

Within an environment that is so violently oppressive, the ability to imagine a future becomes an incredibly radical act because it involves seeing possibilities beyond the imperialism forced upon Indigenous peoples. In literature, film, anthropology, and in legislation the Indigenous person is relegated to the past, antiquated and expected to self-eradicate. We see this in the current-day fascination in the last “full-blooded” person, or the way in which blood quantum determines a whole nation's survival in the eye of colonial law. A similar obsession with blood was apparent in Nazi Germany through their Mischling test to racially classify Jewish peoples.

The ability to imagine a future.

For artist Ahilapalapa Rands (Kanaka Maoli, iTaukei Viti, Pākehā) the last year has been spent in London. Currently in England, and all over the Commonwealth, we are amidst the first of a three-year commemoration of the 250-year anniversary of Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages. However, for those of us in settler nations—who are still confronted with the ongoing effects of colonisation—our desire to see these voyages commemorated with such grandeur is very different to those in England where the literal riches of the

420 Brunswick Street | Brisbane QLD 4006, Australia | ima.org.au | ima@ima.org.au

Opening Hours Tuesday–Saturday 11am–6pm | First Thursday of the month 11am–9pm

MAP

Ahilapalapa Rands The Commute

22 September–22 December 2018

Upcoming Events

29 September Queer Pride: Closing Symposium & Celebration

4 October First Thursdays, Carol McGregor

6 October Book Launch, Ryan Presley: Prosperity

The Ability to Imagine a Future: On the work of Ahilapalapa Rands

Lana Lopesi

1 Haunani-Kay Trask, “The Stuggle For Hawaiian Sovereignty-Introduction”, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, March 2000, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publica- tions/cultural-survival-quarterly/struggle-hawaiian-sovereignty-introduction. 2 Ibid.

The Commute is supported by the IMA and has received assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts, Australian Government through the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Creative New Zealand, Canada Council for the Arts, Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and Queensland Government through Arts Queensland in partnership with Brisbane City Council.

25 June, 2017, 2.27pm Mauna Kea I love you We will stand strong

4th October, 2017 3.10pm sitting on the bus in Kingston upon Hull scrolling to find out from Andre that the TMT permit has been approved 💔💔💔

#HawaiiansinHull only Hawaiian in Hull

2nd November, 2017, 8.45am Honolulu Civil Beat Podcast: OFFSHORE Episode three, Season two: The Sacred Mountain

“What will be lost if TMT isn’t built on Mauna Kea?”

“It will really be a loss to American leadership, because even if we build it, it will not be built in the US, it will be somewhere else. I think we all like to feel that we’re associated with something thats sort of 'breaking new ground’, 'The frontier spirit', and I think America really has this attitude of doing things that no one else does or can do and I think thats a very important part of our culture and a very important part of our place in the world." —Ed Stone, Director TMT Governing Board.

20th November, 2017, 12.20pm Ko’olau! Ko’olau! Ko’olaaaau!

In order to love you the way I want I close my eyes waiting for the 381 Travelling over the North Sea, Continents stretching until our Moana Nui a kiwa. Upon arrival I realise My human form is insufficient, laughable, childlike and inappropriate. I am the mist. I encircle and caress. Hanging suspended, gathering and dissipating along your valleys and cliffs. This may take all nights and into the mornings

14th February, 2018, 2.20pm On this day, February 14th, 1779 Tāwhirimātea was blowing hard all day. This August marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooks first departure from the UK to Moana nui a Kiwa. This was the first of three voyages, the last ending in Kealakekua Bay where we killed him. Not sure what I thought I was going to find here in Whitby, the small sea town where he lived and did his apprenticeship. I carry Kupuna who lost their lives on the beach that day in my stomach, my Yorkshire blood sits still and heavy in my calves.

3rd March 2018 3.45pm Beginning online course for learning Hawaiian - NiuoLahiki is named after a

A collection of notes in the months I have spent living

in the UK

Ahilapalapa Rands

“I ka wā mamua, ka wā mahope”

This Hawaiian proverb “I ka wā mamua, ka wā mahope” has been translated into English as “the future that lies in the past”, “the time in front” or “through the past is the future”. As Kanaka Maoli historian Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa noted in her book Native Land and Foreign Desires (2013), “Ka wā mamua” or “the time in front or before” denotes the past with “Ka wā mahope”, or “the time which comes after or behind” denoting the future. A similar proverb in te reo Māori reads “Ka mua ka muri” which is most commonly translated to “walking backward into the future”.

Time in this instance is not the linear time we have become so familiar with, which posits the past on one end with the future on the other. Instead here relates to Hawaiian and Māori conception of pasts and futures being interconnected. These definitions highlight the importance of the present moment for Kanaka Māoli with one’s back moving toward the future while embracing the richness and wisdom of the past, with the ultimate sentiment that we should look into the past to help us inform the actions of the present and the future.

The ability to imagine a future.

With notions of the future so readily woven into Hawaiian concepts of time—and other Indigenous Moana concepts of time for that matter—it is no wonder that there have been many generations of futurists in the Hawaiian Islands long before Captain James Cook first sighted the archipelago. It would be easy then to assume that this innate ability for radical imagination has remained unbroken across the islands, and yet to assume that would also involve undermining the seemingly irreversible and pervasive colonisation of that archipelago. The Hawaiian Kingdom was invaded by United States military forces in 1893, when they overthrew the Hawaiian rule under Queen Liliʻuokalani, outlawed ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi

The IMA is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Federal, State, and Territory Governments. The IMA is a member of Contemporary Art Organisations Australia.

the national language in 1896, and in 1900 became a territory of the United States. Since then Kanaka Maoli have suffered “massive depopulation, landlessness, christianization, economic and political marginalization, institutionalization in the military and the prisons, poor health and educational profiles.”1 Most recently corporate tourism has further commodified Kānaka Maoli culture and land. As Haunani-Kay Trask has written, “Burdened with commodification of our culture and exploitation of our people, Hawaiians now exist in an occupied country whose hostage people are forced to witness, and for many of us to participate in, our collective humiliation as tourist artifacts for the world's rich.”2

Within an environment that is so violently oppressive, the ability to imagine a future becomes an incredibly radical act because it involves seeing possibilities beyond the imperialism forced upon Indigenous peoples. In literature, film, anthropology, and in legislation the Indigenous person is relegated to the past, antiquated and expected to self-eradicate. We see this in the current-day fascination in the last “full-blooded” person, or the way in which blood quantum determines a whole nation's survival in the eye of colonial law. A similar obsession with blood was apparent in Nazi Germany through their Mischling test to racially classify Jewish peoples.

The ability to imagine a future.

For artist Ahilapalapa Rands (Kanaka Maoli, iTaukei Viti, Pākehā) the last year has been spent in London. Currently in England, and all over the Commonwealth, we are amidst the first of a three-year commemoration of the 250-year anniversary of Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages. However, for those of us in settler nations—who are still confronted with the ongoing effects of colonisation—our desire to see these voyages commemorated with such grandeur is very different to those in England where the literal riches of the

420 Brunswick Street | Brisbane QLD 4006, Australia | ima.org.au | ima@ima.org.au

Opening Hours Tuesday–Saturday 11am–6pm | First Thursday of the month 11am–9pm

MAP

Ahilapalapa Rands The Commute

22 September–22 December 2018

Upcoming Events

29 September Queer Pride: Closing Symposium & Celebration

4 October First Thursdays, Carol McGregor

6 October Book Launch, Ryan Presley: Prosperity

The Ability to Imagine a Future: On the work of Ahilapalapa Rands

Lana Lopesi

1 Haunani-Kay Trask, “The Stuggle For Hawaiian Sovereignty-Introduction”, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, March 2000, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publica- tions/cultural-survival-quarterly/struggle-hawaiian-sovereignty-introduction. 2 Ibid.

The Commute is supported by the IMA and has received assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts, Australian Government through the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Creative New Zealand, Canada Council for the Arts, Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and Queensland Government through Arts Queensland in partnership with Brisbane City Council.

25 June, 2017, 2.27pm Mauna Kea I love you We will stand strong

4th October, 2017 3.10pm sitting on the bus in Kingston upon Hull scrolling to find out from Andre that the TMT permit has been approved 💔💔💔

#HawaiiansinHull only Hawaiian in Hull

2nd November, 2017, 8.45am Honolulu Civil Beat Podcast: OFFSHORE Episode three, Season two: The Sacred Mountain

“What will be lost if TMT isn’t built on Mauna Kea?”

“It will really be a loss to American leadership, because even if we build it, it will not be built in the US, it will be somewhere else. I think we all like to feel that we’re associated with something thats sort of 'breaking new ground’, 'The frontier spirit', and I think America really has this attitude of doing things that no one else does or can do and I think thats a very important part of our culture and a very important part of our place in the world." —Ed Stone, Director TMT Governing Board.

20th November, 2017, 12.20pm Ko’olau! Ko’olau! Ko’olaaaau!

In order to love you the way I want I close my eyes waiting for the 381 Travelling over the North Sea, Continents stretching until our Moana Nui a kiwa. Upon arrival I realise My human form is insufficient, laughable, childlike and inappropriate. I am the mist. I encircle and caress. Hanging suspended, gathering and dissipating along your valleys and cliffs. This may take all nights and into the mornings

14th February, 2018, 2.20pm On this day, February 14th, 1779 Tāwhirimātea was blowing hard all day. This August marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooks first departure from the UK to Moana nui a Kiwa. This was the first of three voyages, the last ending in Kealakekua Bay where we killed him. Not sure what I thought I was going to find here in Whitby, the small sea town where he lived and did his apprenticeship. I carry Kupuna who lost their lives on the beach that day in my stomach, my Yorkshire blood sits still and heavy in my calves.

3rd March 2018 3.45pm Beginning online course for learning Hawaiian - NiuoLahiki is named after a

A collection of notes in the months I have spent living

in the UK

Ahilapalapa Rands

Exhibition Map

Carol McGregor, Skin Country, 2018 Possum skins, charcoal, ochre, binder medium, waxed thread

Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Qvùtix (Dance Blanket), 2018 Akoya, abalone, and mussel shell buttons, wool, digital animation, 2:00

Ahilapalapa Rands, Lift Off, 2018 3-channel animation, 3:25

Chantal Fraser, The Way, 2018 Wind turbine, generator, rhinestones, steel

Hannah Brontë, FUTCHA ANCIENT, 2018 Lightboxes, photographic prints, textiles, ink, shell

Lisa Hilli, Sisterhood Lifeline, 2018 Latex ink on wallpaper, inkjet print on cotton rag paper, office partitions, iMac, office telephone with vocal recordings, books, Post- It notes, pens, swivel chair

Natalie Ball, When Harry met Sally. I mean, when my Mom met my Dad. I mean, when my Ancestors met my Ancestors. I mean, when a Lace Front met Smoked Skin, 2018 Beaded elk hide moccasins, synthetic lace front wig, shell beads, metal pins, sinew thread, tube sock

Natalie Ball, I Bind You Nancy, 2018 Coyote skull with lower jaw, sinew thread, vintage plastic dolls, beaded deer hide moccasins

T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss, K’axwch’k Nexw7y̓ ay̓ ulh (Turtle Journeys), from the Sacred Teachings series, 2018 HD video, 5:59

T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss, Shḵwen̓ Wéw̓ shḵem Nexw7iy̓ ay̓ ulh (To Explore, To Travel by Canoe), 2018 Lau hala, coconut hull fibre, sea gress, red cedar bark, wool, abalone shell, and mother of pearl buttons

T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss, SḴ’éytl’tanaỳ (Medicinal Plants), from the Sacred Teachings series, 2018 Indigenous plant medicines gathered in Coast Salish, Kānaka Maoli, and Greater Brisbane Aboriginal lands

T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss, K’axwch’k Nexw7y̓ ay̓ ulh (Turtle Journeys), from the Sacred Teachings series, 2018 360-degree VR video, 5:59

T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss, Nexwníw̓ Tkwi Sxwí7shen (Teachings from the Deer), from the Sacred Teachings series, 2018 360-degree VR video, 6:08

1

2

3

GALLERY 1

4

empire are displayed with pride. I would imagine this is especially so for Kānaka Maoli with Hawaiʻi well known as being the place where Cook died (after he attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu) in 1779. Watching Kānaka Maoli struggles for sovereignty—including protests against the proposed satellite on the summit of the sacred Mauna Kea—amidst the celebration is no easy feat. Rands’s own relationship to Hawaiʻi has been further complicated by her inability to qualify for US citizenship and the lack of legal status given to Kānaka Maoli . Within this very particular moment of time Rands has been drawn to the potentials of science fiction, joining a contingent of Kānaka Maoli who work within the frame of Indigenous futurisms. Paying homage to Afrofuturism, Indigenous Futurisms is a term first used by Grace L. Dillon in the introductory chapter for her edited anthology, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012), where she writes,

Liberated from the constraints of genre expectations, or what “serious” Native authors are supposed to write, they have room to play with setting, character and dialogue; to stretch boundaries; and, perhaps most significantly, to reenlist the science of indigeneity in a discourse that invites discerning readers to realize that Indigenous science is not just complementary to a perceived western enlightenment but is indeed integral to a refined twenty-first-century sensibility.3

What Dillon makes obvious is that Indigenous science fiction is actually not so new, but is often overlooked for other more expected types of Indigenous literatures. Inevitably, Dillon asks if science fiction has “the capacity to envision Native futures, Indigenous hopes and dreams recovered by rethinking the past in a new framework?” It is these questions that Rands is contemplating in a new series of work's called Lift Off (2018). The three-channel projection consists of three animations made with technical assistance from London-based animator Fred K Tschepp and an ipu beat made by Rands’ Kumu Hula, Auliʻi Mitchell (and remastered by Nikolai Mahina), which provides a “beating heart”for the work. 4 The central projection in Lift Off involves a woman sitting on the ground with flowing hair sprawled out across the floor. She is a Kumu Hula, beating her ipu. For Rands, hula has been an important point of connection to her late maternal Grandmother and her Hawaiʻi-based family who come from a strong hula lineage. But the kumu hula is not just playing for you, the audience member. On either side of her sit satellite images from the summit of Mauna Kea along with its many telescopes. Over time the telescopes start to move and shift across Mauna Kea to the kumu hula’s beat of her ipu hula, being uplifted and transported off Manua Kea before exploding. The absurdity of dancing telescopes is not lost on Rands, but under the humour remains a powerful understanding of the potential of ‘ike—knowledges, as held within hula—to remove the Western interventions from the land. While Lift Off is a clear reference to outer space it also acknowledges a new beginning, a start of a journey, and a rising above the land into another realm or space. While spaces of separation between Rands, Hawaiʻi, family, hula, and sovereignty remain it is also within those spaces that there is room for growing knowledge, radical imagination, speculation, humour, and art. Imagining a world where Indigenous peoples have sovereignty over their own lands, their cultures, and themselves in many instances is an act of science fiction, an act of imagination.

Ahilapalapa Rands (Kanaka Maoli, iTaukei Viti, Pākehā) uses performance, video and storytelling to explore and articulate intersections of Indigenous experience. Much of her work reflects and shifts around processes of reconnection to her cultures, weaving contemporary with historical Indigenous knowledge. Lana Lopesi (Sāmoa) is an art critic and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand. Lana is currently the Editor-in- Chief for The Pantograph Punch, Editor for Design Assembly and founding editor of #500words.

5

6

7a)

8b)

3 Grace Dillon, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012), 3. 4 Correspondence with the artist 24 August, 2018.

7b)

8a)

8c)

8d)

8e)

GALLERY 2 GALLERY 3

READING ROOM

5

BRUNSW ICK STREET

IMA GALLERY SHOP

GALLERY 2

GALLERY 1

GALLERY 3

IMA ENTRANCE BERWICK STREET COURTYARD

LIFT

READING ROOM

4 43

8a

5

6

1

2

8b 8c 8d-e7a

7b

is named for a legendary coconut tree. In the story, Niu-ola-hiki, in the form of a coconut tree, transports his grandchild on a journey from Hawai‘i to a distant land far across the ocean. 15th March 2018, 9.26am Thank you for this teaching Kumu, I will get some citrine as I find myself very negative in London. My friends and Ipo are wonderful but the culture and colonialism take its toll. I’m not sure I told you but this year is the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooks departure from England to Moana nui. All the big institutions are celebrating with exhibitions full of our taonga. There aren’t many Pacificans here and I certainly haven’t met any Kumu or Tōhunga so it feels angry and unsafe. I have been invited on an arts residency to the town of Whitby where Cook learnt how to sail. They are hosting a festival in his honour. I want to try and find a way to subvert this and make space for our truths. Will see how things develop but your wisdom is always appreciated

22nd March, 2018, 3.40pm Nā emojis o Moana Nui a Kiwa 🤙🏽�🐗🦋🐚🕷🦎🐢🐙🦑🦐

🦀🐡🐠🐟🐬🐳🦈🐓🐖🐂

🐄🐏🐑🐀🌴🌺🌊🍌🍉🍍

🍠🍙🏈🎣)♀+♂🏆🥇🥈🥉

🛩🛶⛵🗿🏖🏝🌋🏔🌌✝

1st April 2018 4.15pm Im starting a Hawaiian Quilt, well, pillow case. Im finding it as thrilling as a game of Tetris. I really want a teacher, online the images are too pixel-led to see the technique. 12th April 2018 9.03am Nā kai ewalu on the doorstep this morning. Volume one for learning ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i. Came by way of Kumu buying it in person on Big Island, travelling to Aotearoa, giving it to my Aunty who then posted it the miles needed to arrive in my hands this morning. Some things remain out of Amazons reach. 13th May, 2018, 9.23pm Decolonisation in our lifetime Demilitarisation in our lifetime 25th May, 2018, 11.12am “I K A WĀ MA MUA, K A WĀ MA HOPE" “THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD. IT’S NOT EVEN PAST.” ʻŌLELO NOʻEAU (HAWAIIAN PROVERB) 2nd June, 2018, 6.12pm It feels so good in this rain. I can finally feel our atua here in the UK The release and relief of Rangi’s rains falling on Papa - their voices rumbling and rolling across the space in between them. 7th July, 2018, 3.43pm I ready myself for excuses and defensiveness so when she looks into my eyes and apologises on behalf of Whitby for the way they remember and honour Cook I am taken aback and burst into tears. ‘We shouldn’t have done this festival, Im sorry.’

Simplified Glossary – ‘olelo Hawaiʻi Kanaka Maoli – Native Hawaiian ipu hula – drum consisting of a single gourd or made of two large gourds of unequal size joined together ʻike – to know, knowledge kumu hula – expert, teacher and knowledge keeper of hula