Dane Hiʻipoi Nakama [he/they]
Pearl City, Hawaiʻi
Review by @smizota. - “Ninufabushi” by Dane Nakama depicts an older Asian woman wearing a white robe, her hands folded in her lap. Executed in washes of white, gray and black on raw canvas, the portrait feels like a memory or a faded photograph. The words “I think I’m forgetting something,” embroidered at the lower right, reinforce this effect, evoking memory loss associated with old age, but also the loss of histories over time.
The most striking part of the image is
the blocky, black, geometric shapes that adorn the woman’s hands. They
are tattoos associated with “hajichi,” an Okinawan tradition that
marks the transition into womanhood. (Nakama, who is from Hawai’i, is
of Japanese and Okinawan descent.) The tattoos were seen as more
important than monetary wealth or a husband and were thought to
protect one from evil. The practice was banned in the late 19th
century when Japan overthrew the Ryukyu kingdom on Okinawa. In
Hawai’i, Okinawan immigrant women often hid their tattoos to avoid
being stigmatized by their Japanese peers. In featuring them so
prominently in this image, Nakama reclaims this heritage, while also
acknowledging its erasure. Similarly, the painting’s title, which in
Okinawan means “North Star,” gestures to the loss of the Okinawan
language at the same time that it presents the woman as a guiding
light. A small white star appears on her right shoulder. The image is
a gentle reminder that those who forget the injustices and erasures of
the past are doomed to repeat them
#pride