Description
Artwork info
“Brenda Christian is Steve Christian’s sister, and mother to Andrew Randall Christian. She lived off island for many years, working on an army base. It was there that she met her second husband, Mike Lupton Christian. Mike appended the Christian surname to his own. Progressive, at first glance. The cynic in me had wondered if this had been a commercial choice – as souvenirs signed by the Christian family are worth more because of the implied closeness to Fletcher, leader of the mutineers.
Brenda serves as the island’s community police officer, now overseen by an off island police officer brought in from New Zealand, and paid for by the UK. All policing decisions are dealt with in collaboration. Brenda was responsible for smoothing the ‘David situation’ over, and attempting to manage the island gossip machine. Malicious gossip is, incidentally, a fine-able offence on Pitcairn and is enshrined in the Pitcairn law book.
Her home is derogatorily known as “Pommy Ridge” because of her time off island. Steve once said in an interview that his sister ‘didn’t understand’ the island because she is ‘British’. Brenda would beg to differ”” – Rhiannon Adam
_
CONTACT | tom@opendoors.gallery
_
_
Big Fence / Pitcairn Island
The Pitcairn Islands are the last British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. Pitcairn was permanently settled by the infamous Bounty mutineers and their Polynesian captives in 1790, and their descendents, now numbering fewer than 40, still live there today.
The tiny, isolated, volcanic island measures just two by one miles, is 400 nautical miles away from its nearest neighbour, and is the least populated jurisdiction in the world. Due to the infrequent supply ship schedule (the island’s only direct access), Rhiannon Adam was trapped on Pitcairn for three months, spending two of those living at Big Fence… READ MORE
_
_
Artist Bio
Rhiannon Adam is a photographic artist, born in Cork, Ireland, in 1985. She currently lives and works between London and the US.
In 1992, her parents sold everything they owned and bought a live-aboard sailing boat, Jannes. From that point, her childhood became nomadic, moving from place to place, mainly around South America and the Caribbean. She eventually moved to London as a teenager to live her with aunt, enabling her to begin mainstream education. She later studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and at the University of Cambridge.
Adam’s work is centred on research-based, long-form, social documentary projects that make use of analogue photographic processes and archive materials, as well as her on-going obsession with Polaroid and the materiality of the photographic image. Her early life experiences have had a lasting influence on her work, with a focus on remote communities, the concept of utopia, and the fine line between fact and fiction… READ MORE
_
