Tides: Gender Beyond the Binary in Oceania
Featuring works from FAFASWAG Collective, Connie M. Florez, Adriana Māhanga Lear, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, and Peter Waples- Crowe.
December 6th 2025 - February 27th, 2026
Opening December 5th at 6 pm
This exhibition delves into the fluid and evolving concept of the non-binary gender in Oceania – a historically recognized identity in many Pacific cultures. Notes Kramarz, “Just as the tides are shaped by the gravitational forces of the moon, sun, and Earth's orbit, our identities are continually formed by a complex interplay of time, external pressures, and cultural forces. Before Christian colonization, many Oceanic societies embraced a wide spectrum of gender identities beyond the binary of male and female. These third-gender roles were an integral part of the social and spiritual fabric of communities.”
The exhibition showcases painting, photography, film, multimedia, and performance by four artists and the FAFSWAG collective. FAFSWAG is a Moana Oceanic arts collective of Māori and Pacific LGBTQI+ artists and activists, founded in Auckland, New Zealand in 2013.
The ten FAFSWAG artists collaborated on a series of portraits that integrate both novel and traditional artifacts, with dazzling and provocative results. EHCC will also present six films created by FAFSWAG, with a critical view of the colonial gaze and the different ways it has shaped the representation of Moana ocean people.
“The Glades Project,” a film by Connie M. Florez, will be shown throughout the exhibition. This documentary gives viewers a poignant look at a piece of Hawai‘i history through the voices of third gender individuals – mahū in traditional Hawaiian culture – who in decades past performed at The Glades show lounge in Honolulu. There, they found refuge and self-acceptance in a world full of debilitating obstacles.
An installation with accompanying soundscape by Pā’utu-’O-Vava’u-Lahi Dr Adriana Māhanga uses fangufangu, the Tongan nose-flute. In Adriana’s work, the flute serves as a conduit to Pulotu, the ancestral homeland/afterworld. Fangufangu was banned by European Christian missionaries in the 19th century, who renamed it “ongo tēvolo” (sound of the devil).
Adriana’s soundscape replicates frequencies of four 1800s fangufangu currently “sleeping” in museum collections. Sounded together, these four flutes create 244 four-part combinations that defy the harmonic structure of the European hymns which forcibly replaced the original flute music.
Also on view is work by the Samoan artist and writer Dan Taulapapa McMullin, a Fa'afafine non-binary artist from Sāmoa 'i Sasa'e (Eastern or American Samoa) who researches the queer nature of Polynesian histories. They are showing three paintings/prints from 2020 and a new video work Fa'afafine ma Tane (2026). Their work incorporates Samoan oral traditions, historical photographs, stock footage and artificial intelligence to interpret the Samoan origin story based on traditions that narrates the transgender nature of Samoan genealogy.
The traditions of Ngarigo Country, the land of Indigenous peoples in southeast New South Wales, are explored by Peter Waples-Crowe, a multidisciplinary artist whose practice examines the intersection of an Indigenous queer identity, spirituality and Australia’s ongoing colonization. Peter’s art explores the Dingo as a much misunderstood creature. The alpine dingo is a kin creature of the Ngarigo people and has been an underdog since 1788, getting in the way of colonial agricultural progress. Once widespread, the Dingo is now a vulnerable species living in the margins of this new society. Says Waples-Crowe, “As a queer Aboriginal person my spirit feels close to the Dingo, it’s a self-portrait. The dingo is queer.”
This exhibition was made possible by funding from the County of Hawai’i and McInerny Foundation - Bank of Hawai’i, Trustee.
Webpage:
https://ehcc.org/content/tides-gender-beyond-binary-oceania
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