Jasmine Togo-Brisby, an Australian South Sea Islander, is a descendant of the 62,000 recorded — and many more unrecorded — islanders who were kidnapped and enslaved on Australia’s sugarcane plantations. This history of Pacific slave trading is often referred to as black-birding, a euphamism that romanticises its brutal realities.
Working with cultural memory, intergenerational trauma, discovery of ancestral remains on plantations, and vitally important healing practices, Togo-Brisby’s art practice is one of very few islander artists delving into our shared histories of plantation colonisation across the Pacific. Bitter-Sweet is a memorial to the many South Sea Islanders who were buried in unmarked graves. This is the first time it will be exhibited in New Zealand.
The exhibition opening is preceded by a screening and presentation – see our events pages for details.
Find the text ‘Handle with Care‘ from curator Ioana Gordon-Smith discussing both Bitter Sweet and Andrew Ananda Voogel’s exhibition Kalapani: The Jahajis’ Middle Passage.