This work comes from a series by Japanese-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist Claudia Kogachi, in which she replicates well-known moments from popular films, recasting them with heroines from much closer to home. Here, she recreates the iconic pottery scene from the 1990 American supernatural romance Ghost. By inserting herself and her partner Josephine into the roles first played by Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, Kogachi highlights how Hollywood’s narrow romantic archetypes erase or invalidate other kinds of relationships – even as they encourage us to imagine ourselves into the scenes they create. Kogachi’s wide-eyed stand-ins lack the hyper-real glamour of their movie counterparts, but they offer genuine tenderness, bound together in the human reality of the here and now.

(Absence, May 2023)