PARDINGTON 2010.485
July 2010
Fiona Pardington's photographs of life casts of named Pacific Islanders and the explorer Dumont d'Urville in her series 'Ahua: A beautiful hesitation' 2010 compellingly address death, history and racial representation and classification. Originally taken by the phrenologist Pierre-Marie Alexandre Dumoutier during his travels in the Pacific in 1837, the casts, with their visceral detailing of facial features, interest the artist not only in their links to her own family history, but also in how they convey the intricacies of memory and the history of museum collecting practices.
