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Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand
Pasifika female identity is synonymous with flowers – sei, hei and tiare are precious and worn close to the body behind the ear, in the hair, or around the neck as lei. Fragrant flowers remain the indigenous perfume of Tangata o le Moana, and the meaning and significance behind the flowers changes with migration to Aotearoa where the fragrance becomes nostalgic and even more beloved.
However, the wearing of flowers by Pasifika women is also tied to the trope of the sexualised and beguiling “dusky maiden”, a stereotype that persists to this day.
The women interviewed in this collection of short films for We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens! reveal the vitality and complexity of what it means to be a Pasifika woman in the twenty-first century. Importantly, flowers help ground these Island-born women, but they also speak back to the dusky maiden trope – shown in historic images from Te Papa’s collection – revealing how romanticised notions of the Pacific have shaped their own identities and how they think and move in the world.
Watch Phylesha Brown-Acton talk about how adornment influences her life as a Niuean woman, and the Western trope of Pasifika women being perceived and portrayed as anonymous exotic dusky maidens.
Watch Mata Atonio talk about how adornment influences her life as a Sāmoan woman, and finding out the names of some of the women photographed in Sāmoa who remain unnamed.
Watch the four Filo-Masoe sisters talk about how adornment influences their lives as Sāmoan women, and the Western trope of Pasifika women being perceived and portrayed as anonymous exotic dusky maidens.
Watch Losalio Milika Pusiaki talk about how adornment influences her life as a Tongan woman, and the Western trope of Pasifika women being perceived and portrayed as anonymous exotic dusky maidens.
Watch Kate Ngatokorua talk about how adornment influences her life as a Cook Islands woman, and the Western trope of Pasifika women being perceived and portrayed as anonymous exotic dusky maidens.
Dr Rachel Yates, past Curator Pacific Cultures at Te Papa, reflects on the journey of creating Flora: Celebrating our Botanical World, how questions of representation, memory, and the so-called “dusky maiden” intertwine with flora and with museum collections, and how Pacific women continue to push those conversations into new terrain.
Curator Māori Moana at Pātaka Jacki Leota-Mua discusses what flowers have represented to her over her life and responds to We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens!, a series of five short films interviewing Pasifika women on the trope of the sensual ‘Dusky Maiden’ and the significance of flower culture in the Pacific Islands.
Flowers are a central part of Pacific identity – especially for women. Archival representations of women and flowers centre on the trope of the Dusky Maiden. However, Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem (Nga Pu Toru, Alofi North) shows that Pacific women are reclaiming their relation to flowers, and in the process, revealing Pacific women as new empowered subjects.
Arts writer Ioana Gordon-Smith (New Zealand, Sāmoa) lives in Porirua and currently works as Lead Curator at Pātaka Art+Museum. Here, Iona responds to the short films of We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens!
The magnificent plant world of Aotearoa New Zealand in art and object.
New Zealand photographer Thomas Andrew lived in Sāmoa from 1891 to 1939. Sāmoa was a major trading centre and tourist destination, and there was a growing demand for souvenir images of island scenes. Many of his portraits of Sāmoan women are examples of stereotypes of the exotic ‘Island belle’ or dusky maiden in colonial photography and were in mass circulation in souvenir photo albums and tourist magazines, and as postcards.
The South Seas, as they were often known before the 20th century, have long held a place in the imagination as an exotic, carefree paradise where the restrictions of Western society no longer applied. Women were usually pictured topless, and the idea of Polynesian beauty represented in highly stereotyped ways.
‘Myths and Maidens’ is a love letter to fa‘afafine Moana, and looks at some of our trauma, challenges and inequities across Pasifika, and how in the face of this, the celebration of ourselves is an act of colonial resistance.
Watch this documentary on Coconet’s website
This edition of Garland Magazine is primarily about adornment and flowers throughout Oceania and reflects a cultural resilience and invention that can be found across the wide expanse of Te Moana nui a Kiwa.
Explore the articles on Garland Magazine’s website.
A homage to Dusky Maiden images as well as a playful take on the low art of velvet painting, Sima Urale’s Velvet Dreams provides a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Pacific Island stereotypes. Part detective story, part documentary, an unseen narrator goes in search of a painting of a Polynesian princess that he has fallen in love with.
Watch this on the NZ On Screen website.
Curator Museum Cook Islands Jean Tekura Mason writes about the star-like tiare maori (Gardenia taitensis), with its gentle fragrance, is the most beloved to Cook Islanders.
Explore the article on the website EnjoyCookIslands.com
