'酋長の娘 (Shūchō no musume) Chief's Daughter'

The title of the series 酋長の娘 (Shūchō no musume) or 'Chief’s Daughter' is lifted from the same title of a popular song composed by Ichimatsu Ishida in the early 1930s. The song describes a Jap-anese soldier falling in love with a daughter of a chief of natives living in the Marshall Islands. The song allegorizes Japanese colonial aggression during the Nan'yō period in Japan, which ruled the South Sea Islands from 1914 to 1945.

The exoticization of a native woman in the song resonates with the European colonial trope of the 'duskymaiden' which signifies the Moana Pacific as erotic/erotic Other, commonly depicted in early colonial accounts; to cinema and tourism paraphernalia including racialized 'hula' dolls. 酋長の娘 alludes to how Japan adopted the 'duskymaiden' trope through the framework of European racial hierarchy and patriarchy by imposing similar distorted images and narratives against the peo-ple and the places it occupied during the Nan'yō period.

In pre-contact Sāmoa, shells were often worshipped as a symbol of an ancestor. This alludes to the cultural and spiritual connection that Sāmoa has with the surrounding ocean, seen as a space that connects to a vast network of islands across the region prior to being divided up into sub-regions as a result of imperial interests. Subsequently, the shells were sourced from the Moana Pacific Ocean, which is the same ocean where Fukushima radioactive water is being released. The Nan'yō period may have ended, yet the colonial legacy continues to influence the way Japan positions itself geo-politically in the Moana Pacific as its closest geographical neighbour.

Each work in the series are named in honour of Samoan goddesses related to the ocean. These names also serves as chiefly titles bestowed onto a taupou or a daughter of a Samoan chief, who is placed in high regard and play a crucial role in representing her clan and performing traditional ceremonies. The works aims to reclaim marginalized histories and contribute to the broader move-ment of reimagining and decolonizing our world.

Yuki Kihara
木原雪