Armfuls of Eclectic Pieces: Poetic-Photographic Essay

Authors

  • Flora Aurima Devatine Independent Poet & Artist

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.19.1.2020.3730

Keywords:

Poem, Ma’ohi, French Polynesia, Fragmentation, Creative Recycling

Abstract

As a writer and poet, I am particularly interested in language(s), in words in Tahitian and in French. Since 2016, I have explored themes of survival, duration, continuity, and transmission through poetry and artworks made of materials evoking cracks, fractures, disruption, remains, remnants, separation, and loss. In this poetic-photographic essay, I reflect on my creative process and show how Tahitian concepts, such as HU’A, HU’AHU’A, HI’O, HI’OHI’O, GLASS, MIRROR, and ITE, SIGHT, KNOWLEDGE, WITNESS have inspired my artworks. I explore how the elements I collected and transformed are both a mirror of society and an invitation to create new images and ideas. I also highlight the importance of – establishing a dialogue between French and – Tahitian and other Indigenous languages for conceptualising the arts and creativity.

Author Biography

Flora Aurima Devatine, Independent Poet & Artist

Flora Aurima Devatine is from a family of Polynesian orators and the author of free-verse poems in French and traditional poems in Tahitian. She has been a member of the Académie Tahitienne Fare Vana'a since it was founded in 1972 and became its Director in 2017. She was the first woman poet to publish a collection of poetry in Tahiti in 1980, Humeurs. She published Tergiversations et Rêveries de l’Écriture Orale in 1998, and was awarded the Heredia Prize by the Académie Française for her collection of poetry, Au vent de la piroguière – Tifaifai, in 2017. In 2002, she also co-founded Littérama'ohi - Ramées de littérature polynésienne, a Polynesian literary journal, with six other authors. She was the first editor of the journal.

References

Aurima Devatine, F. (2016). Au vent de la piroguière – Tifaifai. Paris: Éditions Bruno Doucey.

Conseil supérieur des programmes. (2019). Langues, littératures et cultures régionales. Tahitien Classe terminale, enseignement de spécialité, voie générale. Retrieved : https://www.education.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/imported_files/document/Tle_LLCR_Tahitien_Specialite_Voie_G_1135256.pdf

Davies, J. (Rev.). (1851, 1985) A Tahitian and English Dictionary. Papeete : Haere po no Tahiti.

Devatine, F. (2007). L’expérience de l’enseignement du tahitien à l’école maternelle, primaire, secondaire en Polynésie française (1976-1983). Repères historiques. Littérama’ohi 13, 56-66.

Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de la jeunesse. (2019). BO Le Bulletin officiel de l’éducation nationale. Programme de langues, littératures et cultures régionales - tahitien - de première générale. Retrieved : https://cache.media.eduscol.education.fr/file/28/38/4/ensel484_annexe11_1151384.pdf

Landi M. (2010). « La musique est femme ». La pensée musicale des poètes au XIXe siècle (pp. 15-38). Poésie, arts, pensée. Dir. Y. Bonnefoy & P. Née. Tours : Hermann Éditeurs.

Nations Unies. (2019). L’Assemblée Générale clôt l’Année international des langues autochtones et entend des appels à des mesures urgentes pour les protéger. 17 décembre 2019. Retrieved: https://www.un.org/press/fr/2019/ag12230.doc.htm

Tournier, M. (1986). Petites proses, Collection Folio (n°1768), Paris: Gallimard.

UNESCO (2019). 2019 Année internationale des peoples autochtones. Retrieved: https://fr.unesco.org/IY2019

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Published

2020-08-30

How to Cite

Aurima Devatine, F. (2020). Armfuls of Eclectic Pieces: Poetic-Photographic Essay. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.19.1.2020.3730

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 1 (2020): Special Issue: Environmental Artistic Practices and Indigeneity: In(ter)ventions, Recycling, Sovereignty

Section

Essays

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