Artwork Information

The catalyst for Sione Monū’s photographic series Kafu Couture, 2014– is kafu or blankets; in this case, the mink blankets that are a staple in Monū’s household. Kafu of all varieties, textures, prints and colours are fashioned on Monū’s body as couture garments and documented in a manner befitting of fashion editorials. Across 11 self-portraits and group portraits shot within domestic spaces, kafu are intricately constructed into belted robes and silhouette forms.

In works such as Mangere Bridge – in which the maroon-coloured carpet leads the eye to Monū, who is posed on the couch in a maroon-coloured kafu that strategically covers parts of the artist’s body – leitī are physically and metaphorically inscribed within the domestic. While playful in manner, the artist’s reinterpretation of domesticity denotes the home and its construction as a space where gender can be simultaneously learned, exposed and disrupted.