Victoria in the Pacific

Victoria in the Pacific

Kate Coolahan’s practice is process-driven and employs a number of innovative printmaking and papermaking techniques to explore feminist concerns. Her prints often depict immigrants, especially the isolation of migrant women who arrived in and around Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington during the decades she taught and resided there.

Coolahan was socially, ecologically and philosophically attuned to the changes that immigration brought to Aotearoa. Her errant subject matter and eclectic style, her feminist and anti-capitalist strategy, were hard to categorise. She embraced cosmopolitanism and solidarity through a feminist lens, positioning herself as a constant observer, often framing her subjects through windows and screens in quiet acknowledgement of the filters through which we perceive.

In Victoria in the Pacific, Coolahan depicts the statue of Queen Victoria located in Albert Park in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. This park is historically significant as a site of multiple occupations. The statue is seen framed by windows and Venetian blinds, and surrounded by towering phoenix and windmill palms, specimens imported from Africa and Asia that were planted in the formal English-style gardens. In the title of this work, Coolahan seems to be revealing the foreignness of her surroundings, offering a subtle critique of the misplaced scenery and colonial values governing the South Pacific.

— Amy Weng, 2023