///\\\ GALLERY 2 ///\\\

The West has cast a long shadow over Tahiti; nearly wiping our bodies from existence entirely and recasting our fenua as a ‘paradise’ of ‘dusky maidens’, ripe and ready to be consumed. Our lived experience and cultural autonomy silenced, negated, transmuted and mutated. Lost in a paradise of white men’s fantasies. Not simply an historical fact but an ongoing contemporary assault.

This work reclaims the space of our representation. It is an offering to my daughters and my deceased mother, to my people and to all brown girls and women. We should be angry and we should be proud, and we must actively represent ourselves, for ourselves.

Comprised of sixty self-portraits taken while dancing Ori Tahiti and set to the sound of Tahitian drums, my twin-daughters’ heartbeats (recorded in-utero decades ago), and their adult voices reciting Tahitian children’s rhymes, the installation forms a womb in which the gendered flower metaphor is inverted and its pink hue both creates and invades the reproductive space.

about the artist

Françoise Schneiders is a Tahitian and Aotearoa (NZ) multi-disciplinary artist who combines still photography, film, audio, and personal artifacts to create images and installations. Her work explores alternate ways of seeing and being seen, examining questions of identity, representation, memory, myth, and the poetic potential in the everyday. Rooted in her heritage as both daughter and mother of Tahitian women, she engages with themes of decolonization, diaspora, and the objectification of women - particularly in the Tahitian context. Through her work, Françoise challenges the hegemonic gaze that dominates Pasifika identity representation, offering new perspectives and possibilities. She believes in the transformative power of art to transcend personal narratives and shape collective histories.

Insta: @francoiseschneiders