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Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies - Current Issue

Volume 13, Issue 1

Volume 13, Issue 1, 2025

  • Editorial

      • Editorial

        https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00226_2

        Drawing on recent conversations in the broader field of visual studies, this volume highlights the many ways scholars in New Zealand and the Pacific are rethinking visual cultures through Indigenous epistemologies, critical engagements with settler-colonial legacies and struggles for sovereignty. Building on prior issues of this journal, including a recent Special Issue on photography from the Pacific, the three articles included in this collection advance new directions in Pacific visual and material culture studies and museological practice. Taken together, articles by Fanny Vonu Veys, Maggie Wander and Bernida Webb-Binder underscore the importance of locally grounded yet globally connected scholarship, offering methodological, theoretical and ethical insights into the evolving field of Pacific visual studies. The authors speak to the field’s continued vitality in addressing both historical and contemporary challenges.

  • Articles

      • Material culture from the Pacific to the Netherlands: Representation, relationships and respect

        https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00223_1

        The creation of ethnographic museums in Europe emerged largely under colonial aspirations by which collecting practices were shaped. It is no different for the Pacific objects in the Netherlands, a country where the legacies of the colonial past are at the forefront of public, political and cultural debates. This article will discuss the politics behind working with Oceanic material culture in this specifically Dutch context, demonstrating that activating collections from Oceania and engaging in conversation with Māori, Papuans, Aboriginal Australians, Rapanui and Indigenous contemporary Pacific Island artists presents possibilities for generating new futures in the wake of these Dutch colonial legacies. Firstly, the connected issues of representation, collaboration and co-creation will be addressed. In so doing, the idea of authority – who is speaking for whom? – will come to the fore, as well as the ambassadorial role of objects and the possibilities of restitution. Secondly, I will consider museums as places that unite spaces of academic and public discourses, and of Indigenous and western knowledge. In short, the relationship-building potential of museums with Pacific material culture will be explored. Lastly, I consider the notion of respect with reference to the ethnographic museum’s decolonizing mission.

    • ‘Busy hands and a free mind’: Collaborative workshops and artistic practice in Oceania

      https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00224_1

      This article considers three contemporary art installations that were made during public workshops, in which volunteers helped to construct the final art piece. Quandamooka artist Megan Cope’s (2023) was a monumental installation at the Sydney Opera House made of thousands of oyster shells cleaned and prepared by volunteers across the city. The recurring installation (2014–present), by Māori artist George Nuku (Ngāti Kahunguna and Ngāti Tūwharetoa), sources its materials from plastic waste donated by local communities where the piece is exhibited and the host institutions held numerous workshops in which those same communities transformed their waste into vivid marine creatures. To make the permanent installation (2016) at the Prince Waikiki Resort in Honolulu, Kanaka Maoli artist Kaili Chun invited the hotel’s employees to contribute to a school of metal fish swimming towards the ocean just outside. Each of these installations engages with ecological issues facing marine ecosystems in Oceania. Putting art historical frameworks of collaboration and participatory praxis into conversation with climate justice discourses about coalitions and alliance-building, this article argues that these case studies form critical relationships not just between different people but also between people and their environments.

    • Representations of Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary in

      https://doi.org/10.1386/nzps_00225_1

      African American actress and singer Juanita Hall won a 1950 Tony Award for her portrayal of Bloody Mary, the Vietnamese mother in the musical who seeks a better life for her mixed-race daughter than what is possible on a French-controlled island in Melanesia during World War II. But the American Marine officer chosen by Bloody Mary to partner with her daughter is conditioned by his racism and prejudice against interracial relationships. Debuting in 1949, the character’s attitudes align with those of the segregated United States. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II intended to promote racial tolerance through this Broadway production, which is evidenced by their casting of Juanita Hall, among other gestures. The actress’ portrayal in 1949 becomes the benchmark for comparison for later productions. The musical’s success prompted a plethora of images featuring Hall as Bloody Mary; the character’s military jacket and capri pants would become iconic. The intent of the musical is racial tolerance, yet what are the implications of an African American actress portraying a Vietnamese character who lives on a Melanesian island during World War II? Utilizing Black Pacific theory, this article addresses the visibility and invisibility of Black, Pacific and Asian lived experience in the musical and the resulting visual imagery that becomes the paradigm for ensuing productions onstage and in film.

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