ME-TI’A, AN ISLAND STANDING is a visual portrait of Mehetia island in French Polynesia, and an essay of becoming-island. The video work narrates through the prophecy of Vaita (a high priest from Taputapuatea), the arrival of [white] men on a canoe without an outrigger, and the transformations that would ensue on the isles’ inhabitants. It was shot over a 4 days expedition on Mehetia, where the artist and Futurists Maya Van Leemput and Bram Goots endured and explored life on a desert island cut off from the world. The work includes footage from the first drone to have landed on Mehetia, an oblique reference to the island’s outpost role in sighting Samuel Wallis’ Dolphin in 1760, the first contact.
Commissioned by TBA21 Academy with support from Air Tahiti Nui