Burial
This work is a burial.
My mother's ashes have been stored in a brown paper bag for over 30 years. My father's wish is we await his passing before they are scattered into the sea together.
Her marriage to him marked the beginning of her life in Australia and her departure from Tahiti and her Tahitian family.
Her death was cataclysmic for my family and too soon for the woman I was just becoming. On her deathbed, she begged me to let her go. At her side, I begged her to stay.
I've lived a lifetime in her absence and mourning. The revelation that she and I are held in painful limbo by this unceremonious end inspired this work.
The work echoes my grief, isolation and the mana (spirit) of the mountains, ocean, sky and plants of our Fenua (Tahiti and her islands).
This work is a burial. A ritual of making and closure. A farewell and a welcome to ancestors.
Motive
How can ritual provide a mechanism of self-healing?
How can our totems provide comfort?
How might we connect what has been separated by both time and space?
Method
Strips of handwritten letters between Mama and me are woven into landscape images of our islands. The resonance of our shared stories, both ordinary and extraordinary, momentarily makes her presence felt and her voice heard. The ritualistic making of these woven artefacts was one last conversation of remembering and retelling.
Utilising the cyano-type process echoes the traditional Tahitian fabric motif printing, along with its experiential qualities of making.
