we will 'ulu. we will grow.

2022, installation with two screens, ca. 30 minutes

An video installation  on the breadfruit trees growing on Kaua'i, on the islands of Hawai’i. The work explores the cultural meaning of the breadfruit from its first arrival on the Hawai'ian Islands to now, including the global impact it could have on future generations.
Commissioned by Susanne Wernsing for the exhibition Tiny Unpredictable Material Objects at Forum Wissen in Göttingen. The Georg Forster Herbarium at the University of Göttingen comprises South Pacific plants that had previously been known exclusively to botanists. They originate from James Cook’s second circumnavigation of the world (1772-1775), in which Georg Forster (1754-1794) who was only 17 years old at the time took part as a draftsman. Forster was not only a travel writer and cultural anthropologist, but also a naturalist and revolutionary. His botanical preparations, drawings, and publications follow the standards of botany, which became a science in the course of the 18th century. They refer to the ‘indigenous’ knowledge of Polynesian societies that was overwritten in the process. 250 years after the departure, the exhibition reflects on world voyages in the context of European expansion, colonial exploitation, and hegemonic knowledge production. And it connects to the activist protests against the expedition anniversaries in 2019.