Shigeyuki Kihara | Culture For Sale
Culture for Sale is the third and the final project from Shigeyuki Kihara for the Edge of Elsewhere.
Edge of Elsewhere is a three year project commissioned by the Campbelltown Arts Centre & the 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art for the Sydney Festival.
Culture for Sale is a public performance and video installation devised by artist Shigeyuki Kihara. The performance explores the close relationship between performance, identity and money in relation to the commercialisation of Samoan culture and in the lead up to the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of Samoa in June 2012.
Shigeyuki Kihara is a leading inter-disciplinary artist who explores the intersection between visual arts, performance and theatre.
Kihara’s solo performance entitled Taualuga: the last dance has been staged at venues and festivals throughout the world including Berlin, Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In August 2011 Shigeyuki Kihara traveled to Germany to research materials related to the German administration of Samoa from 1900 till 1914. The research followed the historical footprints of Samoans who traveled and toured across Germany where they were exhibited in a zoo. The practice was commonly known as ‘Völkerschau’ a popular form of exotic and colonial entertainment.
Conceptually informed by the Samoan participation in the ‘Völkerschauen’, the ‘Culture for Sale’ public performance and video installation was staged in collaboration with the ‘Spirit of the Islands’ Samoan dance group in Sydney held at the Campbelltown Arts Centre in January 2012.
The ‘Culture for Sale’ documentary is commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre and 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art for Sydney Festival 2012. Directed by Shigeyuki Kihara. Edited by Filmmaker Kirsty MacDonald.
For more information please visit:
shigeyukikihara.com
shigeyukikihara.wordpress.com/
