Artists: Sue Pearson and Jean Clarkson
Location: Sheaff Family Gallery - Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi - Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre

Hei III: Awas Side (our place) celebrates ten years of collaboration between Pacific artists Jean Clarkson and Sue Pearson. The exhibition explores their heritage and history of migration - from Tahiti to Pitcairn to Norfolk Island and Aotearoa. These artists have been retelling the Bounty mutiny narrative from the viewpoint of the twelve Tahitian women who settled Hitiaurevareva (Pitcairn Island) with the mutineers in 1790.

Hollywood films have depicted versions of this event that present the mutineers as heroes and neglect the role and strength of these women. Within a short period of settlement, struggles over women and land resulted in fighting, with only one mutineer surviving. It was the strength, practicality, and endurance of the Polynesian women that ensured the community flourished.

Pitcairn was not the end of the journey for the artists' ancestors. In 1856, the entire population (eight families) departed Pitcairn and settled then-uninhabited Norfolk Island as a new homeland, bringing with them their unique language and cultural traditions. This movement across the Pacific and evolution of culture and identity is an ongoing source for Clarkson and Pearson's practice. The artists regularly travel between Aotearoa and Norfolk to visit their homeland and family.