Rhiannon Adam: Big Fence/Pitcairn Island

Rhiannon Adam: Big Fence/Pitcairn Island by Michael HoneggerJune 6, 2022

©Rhiannon Adam, Big Fence/Pitcairn Island

The stunningly beautiful volume, Big Fence/Pitcairn Island, is a Venus-flytrap of a photo archival narrative that lures you into the history, mystery, and allure of a South Pacific idyll only to wrench you back into the contemporary undercurrent of violence toward women, rape, and male hierarchy. Nestled beneath the romantic notion of the mutineers of the H.M.S Bounty and the later Hollywood visions of Clark Gable and others as Fletcher Christian, is the tawdry reality of how the male descendants of those mutineers evolved. Rhiannon Adam paints a startling picture of both the beauty of the geography of the South Pacific in juxtaposition with the free-wheeling domination of the sexual mores of a sub-culture by key male players descended from the Bounty mutineers.

The tome is divided into two distinct inverted covers that symbolically foreshadow the divisive nature of the tale that Adam tells. As she states in her introduction, “This book is meant to be confusing, a little hard to handle, a little overwhelming, and a little discombobulating.” It is all those things, but well worth the minor inconvenience of figuring out all the pieces of the mystery and delving into the shocking tale that she weaves with the threads of legend and reality.

Sitting high above the Landing at Bounty Bay is the perfect place to watch for passing ships. On island I spent much of my time there, gazing beyond the small strip of Adamstown buildings; scanning the horizon in hope of newcomers – hungry for news and fresh conversation. Adamstown is named after John Adams (aka Alexander Smith), the last remaining mutineer to survive on Pitcairn Island. The mutineers’ early settlement was characterised by bloodshed (fights over the Polynesian women), drunkenness, accidents, and ill-health. By 1800, only Adams remained. After Pitcairn was rediscovered by Captain Folger on American whaler, Topaz, in 1808, reports made their way to England, describing the idyllic society of which Adams was then the leader. He was eventually pardoned for his role in the mutiny, avoiding the fate of several of his shipmates – hanging. When I first landed on Pitcairn, in the chaos of arrival day, several islanders asked if I was any relation to Adams, whether I was a Bounty "descendent." I clarified by pointing out that my name lacked an all-important ‘s’ at the end, and I was no relation. But, I added, "John Adams was born in Hackney, east London, and I live in Hackney. In fact, a council housing block sits on the site of his birth, called Pitcairn House – I pass it on the bus all the time!" – they were disinterested, or perhaps didn’t feel that this was a fitting-enough tribute to their beloved forefather. Ship’s Landing had been used as a kind of lighthouse – in days past, islanders would stand there on shifts waving a lantern to guide and warn. These days, Pitcairn is off the main shipping paths, and visitors are seldom. When boats do arrive, they are announced on VHF Channel 16, and provided with landing instructions. The only lantern lit at Ship’s Landing during my stay was a symbolic beacon, created to celebrate 70 years since VE Day (though Mayor Shawn Christian mistakenly announced it over the radio as 100 years).

©Rhiannon Adam, “Sitting high above the Landing at Bounty Bay is the perfect place to watch for passing ships. On island I spent much of my time there, gazing beyond the small strip of Adamstown buildings; scanning the horizon in hope of newcomers – hungry for news and fresh conversation. Adamstown is named after John Adams (aka Alexander Smith), the last remaining mutineer to survive on Pitcairn Island. The mutineers’ early settlement was characterised by bloodshed (fights over the Polynesian women), drunkenness, accidents, and ill-health. By 1800, only Adams remained. After Pitcairn was rediscovered by Captain Folger on American whaler, Topaz, in 1808, reports made their way to England, describing the idyllic society of which Adams was then the leader. He was eventually pardoned for his role in the mutiny, avoiding the fate of several of his shipmates – hanging. When I first landed on Pitcairn, in the chaos of arrival day, several islanders asked if I was any relation to Adams, whether I was a Bounty “descendent.” I clarified by pointing out that my name lacked an all-important ‘s’ at the end, and I was no relation. But, I added, “John Adams was born in Hackney, east London, and I live in Hackney. In fact, a council housing block sits on the site of his birth, called Pitcairn House – I pass it on the bus all the time!” – they were disinterested, or perhaps didn’t feel that this was a fitting-enough tribute to their beloved forefather. Ship’s Landing had been used as a kind of lighthouse – in days past, islanders would stand there on shifts waving a lantern to guide and warn. These days, Pitcairn is off the main shipping paths, and visitors are seldom. When boats do arrive, they are announced on VHF Channel 16, and provided with landing instructions. The only lantern lit at Ship’s Landing during my stay was a symbolic beacon, created to celebrate 70 years since VE Day (though Mayor Shawn Christian mistakenly announced it over the radio as 100 years).”

Adam spent three months on Pitcairn Island in 2015 armed with a Polaroid camera and the remaining expiring film she wanted to employ on a worthwhile project. Having had extensive experience since childhood with her adventurous family in the South Pacific, she decided to devote her efforts to the small community of Pitcairn Island. Gem Fletcher’s enlightening introductory essay sums up what transpired next: “Through a potent combination of photography, archive, text and interview, Rhiannon does the complex work of animating how violence can coexist with care, and trauma with liberation. What began as a project about the notion of utopia on one tiny, barely populated island in the Pacific, morphed into a study of power, our complicity in the fetishization of white male revolutionaries, and how their vision replicates the very inequalities that they rebelled against.”

Adam’s initial idea was to make portraits of all the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island (47 as of early 2020), a British territory in the South Pacific, in order to create a lasting record of the place at that moment in history. She arrived on the island well informed about the series of sexual assault and rape trials that had occurred roughly twelve years prior whereby half of the island’s adult male population, including several of the island’s leaders at the time, were convicted based upon testimony by various women who had left the island. What has evolved in the book is a divergent array of archival material including partial transcripts of the trials, paraphernalia depicting various movies and images of the alluring South Pacific, actual Polaroids and other photos of Pitcairn islanders and the island today.

Cushana, Pitcairn’s only child, waits for the frigatebirds that circle the landing with detritus from the day’s catch, feeding the giant birds by hand. When they swoop down, they appear bigger than her. More like pterodactyls than birds. A storm was brewing, and a wall of rain was quickly approaching from the sea. As the wind was picking up, Cushana’s joyous yelps vanished with the gusts. I watched her shiver with excitement and wait for the right moment to let go, just as the frigate had successfully grasped its prize. Watching Cushana and the frigates reminded me that here we were, at the intersection between man and nature. It is impossible to divorce the Pitcairners from their rock – the two are inextricable. The isolation and rugged landscape are as coarse as the personalities and attitudes of our living characters, as though they come from the pages of a book. It is as if their geographical location is a device, or a literary construct. Sometimes the parallels between the island and its people can seem "too neat" a metaphor, but the intermingling of fact and fiction are Pitcairn’s reality. In hindsight, this image took on a new significance as a representation of female defiance. Pitcairn is in Cushana’s hands now, as she is the next generation. It is up to her to change the narrative, to chart a new course.

©Rhiannon Adam, “Cushana, Pitcairn’s only child, waits for the frigatebirds that circle the landing with detritus from the day’s catch, feeding the giant birds by hand. When they swoop down, they appear bigger than her. More like pterodactyls than birds. A storm was brewing, and a wall of rain was quickly approaching from the sea. As the wind was picking up, Cushana’s joyous yelps vanished with the gusts. I watched her shiver with excitement and wait for the right moment to let go, just as the frigate had successfully grasped its prize. Watching Cushana and the frigates reminded me that here we were, at the intersection between man and nature. It is impossible to divorce the Pitcairners from their rock – the two are inextricable. The isolation and rugged landscape are as coarse as the personalities and attitudes of our living characters, as though they come from the pages of a book. It is as if their geographical location is a device, or a literary construct. Sometimes the parallels between the island and its people can seem “too neat” a metaphor, but the intermingling of fact and fiction are Pitcairn’s reality. In hindsight, this image took on a new significance as a representation of female defiance. Pitcairn is in Cushana’s hands now, as she is the next generation. It is up to her to change the narrative, to chart a new course.”

The Big Fence of the title has several factual and symbolic meanings that include: the house where Steve Christian (one of the convicted leaders of the community and a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian of H.M.S. Bounty fame or infamy) and his wife, Olive, live and is the first home you encounter upon arriving on the island; the house name directly associated with the “trials” as many of those convicted were locally known as “the Big Fence gang”; the symbolic boundary of the book between fiction and reality; and finally, the island and the greater vast wall of the Pacific Ocean. These multi-faceted symbols shine through as one pages through the constant contradictions of grass skirts, dramatic landscapes and powerful transcripts from the sexual assault trials.

On a final note, the book soars from a visual point of view by the meticulous attention to detail in the design and innovative construction of the object by Rhiannon Adam and designer, Aneta Kowalczyk of BlowUp Press. The tome is an organized maze of maps, captions, essays, and an index that lead you through the labyrinthine story that Adam tells with such clarity and sympathy.

This is a book to appreciate for its artistry and daring in bringing further light upon an issue that is not confined to a remote island in the South Pacific. It presents an unusual case study in yet another tale of masculine overreach and domination that should no longer be condoned in any environment.

When most think of the South Pacific, images of swaying palm trees and glistening strips of soft white sand immediately spring to mind. Pitcairn bears little resemblance to that vision. It is rocky and volcanic, emerging abruptly from the vast blue horizon, as if by accident. It was here that the Bounty’s mutineers made their home, finding – in this most austere of islands – the perfect hiding place. Its inaccessibility providing a veil of secrecy, resulting in both its protection and subsequent decline. When I arrived on Pitcairn, I was handed a crudely drawn map of the island, and was quick to notice that its craggy shoreline was littered with tragedy-laden place names: "Oh Dear", "Dan Fall", "Nellie Fall", "Lin Fall", "McCoy’s Drop", "Six Feet" – to name but a few. While on island, and particularly in my early days, when hostility and daily showdowns had become a part of my everyday existence, I couldn’t help wondering if I too may end up with a "drop" named after me, should I make a proverbial (or literal) misstep. I wasn’t the first to have thought this – in October 1952, Freda Gwilliam, Education Adviser to the Colonial Office, wrote a report about the state of Pitcairn Island, based upon correspondence received from Mrs Moverley, wife of Pitcairn’s first government-appointed teacher Albert Moverley. In the report, she summarises Mr and Mrs Moverley’s fears regarding the island’s chief of police, Floyd McCoy, who had recently been banished to Tahiti. She writes, "the old gang have everything lined up for him on his return. Their previous experience of the covering-up of crime under the umbrella of accident makes them fear for his life, which sounds melodramatic, but which from their experience they feel is very likely." If this were even a perceived risk to an islander, I felt that my own fears were somewhat justified. A closed community like this one was likely to protect itself, to close ranks, at all costs. If there were ever a

©Rhiannon Adam, “When most think of the South Pacific, images of swaying palm trees and glistening strips of soft white sand immediately spring to mind. Pitcairn bears little resemblance to that vision. It is rocky and volcanic, emerging abruptly from the vast blue horizon, as if by accident. It was here that the Bounty’s mutineers made their home, finding – in this most austere of islands – the perfect hiding place. Its inaccessibility providing a veil of secrecy, resulting in both its protection and subsequent decline. When I arrived on Pitcairn, I was handed a crudely drawn map of the island, and was quick to notice that its craggy shoreline was littered with tragedy-laden place names: Oh Dear, Dan Fall, Nellie Fall, Lin Fall, McCoy’s Drop, Six Feet – to name but a few. While on island, and particularly in my early days, when hostility and daily showdowns had become a part of my everyday existence, I couldn’t help wondering if I too may end up with a “drop” named after me, should I make a proverbial (or literal) misstep. I wasn’t the first to have thought this – in October 1952, Freda Gwilliam, Education Adviser to the Colonial Office, wrote a report about the state of Pitcairn Island, based upon correspondence received from Mrs Moverley, wife of Pitcairn’s first government-appointed teacher Albert Moverley. In the report, she summarises Mr and Mrs Moverley’s fears regarding the island’s chief of police, Floyd McCoy, who had recently been banished to Tahiti. She writes, “the old gang have everything lined up for him on his return. Their previous experience of the covering-up of crime under the umbrella of accident makes them fear for his life, which sounds melodramatic, but which from their experience they feel is very likely.” If this were even a perceived risk to an islander, I felt that my own fears were somewhat justified. A closed community like this one was likely to protect itself, to close ranks, at all costs.

Adam’s work is heavily influenced by her nomadic childhood spent at sea, sailing around the world with her parents. Little photographic evidence of this period in her life exists, igniting an interest in the influence of photography on recall, the notion of the photograph as a physical object, and the image as an intersection between fact and fiction – themes that continue throughout her work.

Her long-term projects straddle art photography and social documentary, while subject matter is often focused on narratives relating to myth, loneliness, and the passage of time. The results of these explorations are captured almost exclusively in ambient light through the hazy abstraction of degrading instant-film materials and color negative film, and are often contrasted with the stark reality of archive material.

As a part of her varied practice, Adam is also an occasional publisher and curator. Her imprint ‘Lost Cat’ was founded in 2013 with the release of Kevin Griffin’s Omey Island: Last Man Standing, and until 2015, she was the resident curator and co-founder of Gallery One and a Half, a photography gallery in Hackney, London.

Her work has been exhibited internationally as well as being widely featured in the press –including the New York Times, M Magazine/Le Monde, Art Review, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Huffington Post, BBC, Vice, Huck, Featureshoot, The British Journal of Photography, Fisheye, It’s Nice That, Dazed and Confused, Colors magazine, Harpers Bazaar and Loose Associations (published by the Photographer’s Gallery).