How Long? — Mhairi-Clare Fitzpatrick

How Long?

How Long? (ongoing)
(dir. Luke Willis Thompson)

16mm, Kodak Vision 3 250d, silent 11 minutes, 26 seconds. Color negative film transferred to digital video. Aaton XTR Prod.

The premise of How Long? refers to a tradition of naming which is specific to indigenous Pacific Island cultures. New names can be given either as first or surnames providing an event or the relation that grants the name is significant enough.

Filmed in Fiji, How Long? presents four individuals from different families, who each carry the name of a nation or contested territory. Arranging the subjects from oldest to youngest and making their names available in their anglicised form, the portraits collectively construct an embodied timeline which maps the global deployment of Fijian soldiers and security forces over the past four decades: Jone Lebanon (born 1979), Rosi Lebanon (born 1984), Rupeni Iraq (born 2011) and Inia Sinai (born 2017).

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Mhairi-Clare Fitzpatrick

Commissioned by Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Wellington. Curated by Stephen Cleland. Produced with support from Creative New Zealand, Chartwell Trust and the Jan Warburton Charitable Trust. Filmed on location in Lautoka, Suva, and Nausori, and with the permission of the villages of Namoli and Munua, December 2017.

Exhibitions:

2018 - Luke Willis Thompson, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington