Greg Semu is a New Zealand-born photographic artist of Samoan descent.
Career
Semu is largely self-taught as an artist and film-maker. In 1994 Semu was included in the landmark exhibition Bottled Ocean, curated by Jim Vivieaere. His work for Bottled Ocean was a graffiti-inspired corrugated iron work that reflected on the 'gritty realities of Pacific communities living in suburban Auckland'. In 1994 Semu also directed the music video for New Zealand hip hop group Sisters Underground's classic song ‘In the Neighbourhood’. In 2007 Semu was invited to be the inaugural artist in residence at the newly opened Musee du Quai Branly. The museum invited Semu to respond to a piece of advertising collateral, the 'Bonded by Blood' poster, which had been gifted to Quai Branly, to commemorate the All Black’s 2006 tour of France and the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The 'Bonded by Blood' poster depicts the All Blacks performing their signature haka 'Ka Mate Ka Mate' in a rain forest setting with ancestral Māori figures silhouetted in the foliage. In what curator Reuben Friend describes as "an act of subversion", the photographs Semu produced show "fictitious scenes of Māori ‘warriors’ engaged in battle, seemingly celebrating the fighting spirit of Māori while addressing the objectionable stereotypes of Pacific people as 'primitive' and 'savage'." The series, titled The Battle of the Noble Savage, has been shown at a number of galleries, including City Gallery Wellington and Te Manawa in New Zealand. Semu has also worked as a commercial photographer. In 2010 he took portraits of New Zealand-born Polynesian rugby league players for a calendar produced by the Casula Powerhouse as a fundraiser and community outreach project for the Pasifika community. In 2012 Semu placed an archive of his negatives, proof sheets and film reels, diaries and ephemera, and examples of his commercial work, on long-term loan to the Auckland Art Gallery. In 2016 Semu's exhibition The Raft of the Tagata Pasifika will be shown at the National Gallery of Victoria. Part of his ongoing exploration of the colonisation and Christianisation of the Pacific, these works also reference the genre of European history paintings from this period. In them Semu works with indigenous actors in the Cook Islands to re-stage and photograph two important 19th century paintings: Théodore Géricault’sThe Raft of the Medusa and Louis John Steele and Charles F Goldie’sThe Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand.
