Flowers are a central part of Pacific identity – especially for women. Archival representations of women and flowers centre on the trope of the Dusky Maiden. However, Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem (Nga Pu Toru, Alofi North) shows that Pacific women are reclaiming their relation to flowers, and in the process, revealing Pacific women as new empowered subjects.
Pacific women have a power that may not erase the trope of the Dusky Maiden from Western archives and imaginings, but is creating a compelling decolonial narrative that provides flourishing futures for gendered Pacific cultures. Central to this transformation is the flower in all its expressive diversity.
Holding agency and performative power
Each of the videos from We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens! shows how flowers are meaningful – holding memories of beloved parents and home islands; adorning and inspiring in dance and pageantry, and celebratory events; and evoking an essence of Pacific femininity that has agency and performative power.
There is no doubt that each of the women in the videos has agency over the construction of who they are and their value in the world.
Unlike Dusky Maidens in awkward poses and with disinterested gazes, these women are elegant, comfortable in their bodies and articulate in their analysis of the culture of flowers and the Dusky Maiden trope. Their reclamation of the flower as part of their identity has a performative power that will inspire new generations of Pacific people to reframe colonial histories.
The performative power of the video is seen in the continuing embrace of flowers in dance, fashion wear, and just going to work every day. Wearing a single flower, or more, is a personal expression of beauty and connection to others, but is also a practice that invites opportunities to share embodied personal stories of the Pacific.
Everyday, often gendered, stories are part of the decolonial practice of meaning-making, which effectively averts our eyes towards the generative potential of Pacific creative practices related to flowers, way beyond the Dusky Maiden.
Each of the videos demonstrates new empowered subject positions of Pacific women. Their stories generously reveal a practice of intimate but critical engagement with the archives and the place of flowers.
Flowers connect and affect
Representations of flowers in the archives are just that – representations. But flowers are part of a real-life material ecosystem. They connect human bodies through several affective responses – how they smell, their colour and shape, but also how they feel against the skin.
Yet these affective responses are reduced with the use of artificial flowers. Are there new opportunities for fresh flower production in Aotearoa, or will global trade predominate in the practices of our cultural production?
Watch We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens!
Watch the five interviews with Pacific women on the trope of the sensual ‘dusky maiden’ and the significance of flower culture in the Pacific Islands. Then read about how the project came about, and responses to the videos from four Pacific women in the arts.
We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens! on Te Papa’s website.
Yvonne Jasmine Te Ruki Rangi o Tangaroa Underhill-Sem MNZM
Yvonne Jasmine Te Ruki Rangi o Tangaroa Underhill-Sem MNZM was born in Rarotonga, Cook Islands and raised in Cannons Creek, Porirua, New Zealand. Her ancestors are from Nga Pu Toru (Mauke, Mitiaro and Atiu) and Mangaia in the Cook Islands, Alofi North in Niue, and England. Yvonne is currently Professor of Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland.
