Blue Moon, 2022

When my grandfather passed away, my mother and her siblings stood at the gravesite and sang the song Blue Moon. Their parents would sing this song when they were children and although not able to fully get through it, I will always remember the lines Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart.

This new video work features found family footage of my grandfather, when my parents visited family in Samoa and when my family went to Rarotonga for the first time to see family the year I turned sixteen. The footage is shaky, the hand of the person (most likely my father) holding the camera is unstable as the camera takes the viewer through the family home in Rarotonga. My grandfather laughs and dances silently to a slowed down backing track as do the dancers I saw at the hotel in Raro. The video is layered and almost folds back upon itself revealing and concealing faces and people that are no longer alive and moments that have long passed. 

There may be markers of time in the videos but blue moon as a work attempts to flatten time, to show the slipperiness of the medium of the camera and honour family, history and that perhaps the moon saw it all along and we are not alone. 

Presented at St Paul St Gallery Two

Photo credit: Emily Parr