Description (CMS Description)
Triptych chromogenic photographic print printed on "Fujicolor Professional Paper" entitled, Fa’a fafine: In a manner of a woman. Three large photographs show the artist Shigeyuki (Yuki) Kihara, in various stages of undress. The setting remains the same: a chaise-longue, with a Samoan mat and plants in the background. The sepia colours used give the illusion of a photograph having been shot in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.
A: the artist wears a grass skirt and a necklace; B: the artist wears only a necklace, her penis 'tucked' to emphasise her feminine body while in C, her penis is 'untucked' to reveal the body of the Fa’a fafine.
Event Date 10/12/2008
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Shigeyuki Kihara (Samoan, born 1975). Fa’a fafine: In a manner of a woman, edition 2, 2004-2005. The artist, Shigeyuki Kihara [Yuki] has photographed herself as both a man and a woman in poses that mimic colonial images of Samoans and challenge Western frameworks and the gender binary of male or male or female.

Event Date 10/12/2008
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: Pasifika Styles, MAA, Andrews Gallery, 2006- March 2007. Works were exhibited unframed
Event Date 27/1/2015
Author: Rachel Hand

Context (CMS Context)
Framed and displayed in Assembling Bodies: Art, Science & Imagination, Andrews gallery, March 2009- November 2010. Recorded on the project website, http://maa.cam.ac.uk/assemblingbodies/exhibition/art/275/ as 'Kihara's compelling triptych challenges stereotypic representations of Polynesian women as sensuous 'dusky maidens' and raises questions regarding the attribution of gender and racial identity. The artist positions herself centrally within the series of images, which both mimic and critique the techniques of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century studio photography" (Anita Herle). See Herle, Elliott and Empson 'Assembling Bodies: Art, Science & Imagination' 2019: 36.
"What people see with me is the surface of what is s being presented to them, but not necessarily what you would call a reality. I am Polynesian, I am Asian, I appear publicly and live as a woman within my male anatomical body; this is known as fa`a fafine in Samoa 'third gender' is the closest western interpretation."


Event Date 27/1/2015
Author: Rachel Hand

Loan (Exhibition)
Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 10 October 2019 – 24 August 2020
Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, 24 September 2020 – 31 May 2021
, 10/10/2019 to 31/05/2021, Echte mannen, echte vrouwen (Real Men, Real Women)
Event Date 10/10/2019
Author: rachel hand

Context (Production / use)
The triptych's have been printed onto photo paper and die-bonded onto aluminium sheets.

Event Date 20/8/2019
Author: rachel hand

Context (References)
Erica Wolf, 2010, Shigeyuki Kihara's "Fa'a fafine; In a Manner of a Woman": The Photographic Theater of Cross-Cultural Encounter.Pacific Arts, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 23-33 (11 pages)


Event Date 20/7/2020
Author: rachel hand

Loan (Exhibition)
Wereldmuseum, Willemskade 25, 3016 DM Rotterdam, Netherlands, 24/09/2020 to 31/05/2021, What a Genderful World!
Event Date 24/9/2020
Author: rachel hand

Loan (Exhibition)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, 04/10/2025 to 01/03/2026, Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp and Darwin Drag
Event Date 4/10/2025
Author: Rachel Hand

Loan (Exhibition)
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA, Norwich, 15/03/2025 to 03/08/2026, Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp and Darwin Drag
Event Date 15/3/2025
Author: Rachel Hand