Lookin’ S.Pacific: moving imagery in Aotearoa New Zealand and Hawai’i.

Abstract

Pacific Island arts practices have been largely discussed in terms of the performing arts, such as dance and music, or the fine arts such as painting, carving, and weaving. To date, moving imagery has attracted relatively little interest. This thesis examines Pacific Island moving imagery in broadcast media, as an expression of a transnational imaginary, an emergent aesthetic and discursive movement, and as a reflection of cultural politics both within and between nation states. Adopting a broadly comparative approach between Pacific Island moving image practices in Hawai'i and in Aotearoa New Zealand this thesis explores a range of genres including documentary, comedy, short film, and music video. Although both Antipodean based Pacific Island moving image-makers and their American counterparts are generally engaged in postcolonial criticism, there are fundamental differences in the discursive strategies they choose. New Zealand Pacific Island moving imagery displays greater latitude in fictional forms and an abiding engagement with irony, kitsch, and camp, whereas work from Hawai'i reflects a stronger commitment to non-fiction and discourses of sobriety. In part these strategies reflect different demographic profiles, political economic contexts, and national preoccupations. Pacific Islanders in New Zealand constitute a relatively large and established minority community. They are incorporated into the national imaginary in ways that are significantly different than Pacific Islanders in the United States who constitute an essentially negligible and virtually invisible minority. While the status of Pacific peoples within both national imaginaries (New Zealand and the United States) is significant in both real and symbolic terms, Pacific Islanders often regard themselves as fundamentally transnational, having formed extensive economic and kin based networks across the Pacific region. Therefore, constructions of place, space, locality, and identity as they are mediated in moving imagery, reflect both tensions within the nation-states where Pacific Island communities live, and the post-national spaces within which they imagine themselves.