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Friday, June 9, 2017

Visions of Tahiti

Memories of one of our favorite island groups



TAHITI


Memorial to Captain Wallis, first European discoverer of the island


The somewhat smaller memorial to Captain Cook


What the locals really do at Matavai Bay


The river where the discoverers' crews collected fresh water - and where Tahiti was first claimed as a British possession "by right of conquest"


Arahurahu, a restored marae outside Papeete


Another memorial -- to Moruroa, where the French tested nuclear bombs


And yet another -- to the replica voyaging canoe, Hokulea



Even the supermarkets are worth a camera



Further afield, there are mountains, beaches, and waterfalls


Take to the sea, and voyage north,  and findthe island of Bora Bora, haven for pirates in the past, and now a resort for the rich and famous


Over-water bungalows dot the shores


While the local women have an interesting method for pareu-dyeing, using the sun to make patterns


Closer to Tahiti is beautiful, mystic Moorea


And then there is Raiatea, where Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian navigator, was born...


3 comments:

M. C. Muir said...

Thank you for posting.
MM

heszky andras said...

Dear Joan Druett,

since I failed to find Your e-mail address, let me share the photos of our exhibition about Tupaia under this post.

We three, András, Alma, Luca are finishing our studies of our Darmasiswa scholarship - a one year-long study programme, financed by Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education. We are from Hungary, where we studied art theory and architecture and met the story of Tupaia in Paul Wood's Western Art and the Wider World book borrowed from ITB Bandung's library in October last year. It was a revelation for us meeting such a micro-story of history, and we decided to artistically respond to it. Along the way we found Your expertise on the topic, and Your book but during our preparations we were quite dependent on what we could research online (journals, articles, pictures, library archives etc.). Nevertheless, let me send you the results of our project which we conducted as two performance acts in the Sunda Strait and Pulau Damar Besar and the exhibition which closes in Bandung, Indonesia on this very day.

https://andrasheszky.squarespace.com/installation-views/

We are planning to continue the project after presenting it in Yogyakarta later this month, however we go back to Hungary soon, which offers again a quite different geographical reality as opposed to Indonesia. But our performance, during which we metaphorically evoked and "found" Tupaia's remains at Pulau Damar Besar, actually implies a journey to Tahiti, which we might organize via social media.

We want to express our gratitude for you inspiration!

all the best
András Heszky, Alma Tóth, Luca Petrányi
heszkyandras@gmail.com

World of the Written Word said...

Thank you very much for your very interesting commentary, Heszky. Your project looks wonderful. Congratulations! With very best wishes, Joan (druettjo@gmail.com)