Dan Taulapapa McMullin Art in Hudson

This month Window on Hudson gallery is inaugurating its new exhibition space with a display of images and art from poet and artist Dan Taulapapa McMullin’s book The Healer’s Wound: A Queer Theirstory of Polynesia.

Taulapapa McMullin is a Samoan fa’afafine artist and writer, and their The Healer’s Wound: A Queer Theirstory of Polynesia is based on historical research in the queer cultures of their homeland and other Pacific Island countries. “The queer peoples of Polynesia formed societies of healers and traveling artists, but these societies were suppressed during colonialism by America and Europe,” reads a press release. “The book, through recovered images and texts, narrates the journeys of these indigenous queer cultures and how they came to continue to thrive today. The exhibition includes large scale prints on canvas and works on paper.”


Taulapapa McMullin’s book of poems, Coconut Milk (2013), was on the American Library Association Rainbow List of the Top Ten Books of the Year. “The Bat” and other early works received a 1997 Poets and Writers Award from the Writers Loft. Their work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the De Young Museum, the Musee du quai Branly, the Auckland Art Gallery, and the Bishop Museum, and their film Sinalela won the 2002 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival Best Short Film Award.

Images and art from Dan Taulapapa McMullin’s The Healer’s Wound: A Queer Theirstory of Polynesia is on view at Windows on Hudson in Hudson through July 4.