Artist Li-Ming Hu performs in her video work BONEY (PHONEY?) M Photo: Image courtesy of the artist / Li-Ming Hu
"Authenticity itself has become this commodity in a way that I think needs to be questioned and called out a little."
In her latest video work Boney (Phoney?) M, actor and artist Li-Ming Hu explores the bounds of a concept she says is now simply a fact of life - cultural appropriation.
"I'm not saying it's all okay… there are incidents of theft that need to be acknowledged but appropriation, in and of itself, is a legitimate process," she tells Kim Hill.
In the video, the former Shortland Street and Power Rangers star performs as all four members of the infamous Euro-Caribbean disco group Boney M.
"I thought it would be interesting and uncomfortable and kind of funny inserting my body into an exploration of those ideas."
Watch Boney (Phoney?) M below:
Hu is attracted to the idea of camp, which usually involves kitsch, melodrama and drag, she says, but can also be "a sincere appreciation of anything".
"It's the idea of a sincere attempt to be something, replicate something, that doesn't quite make it for some reason. There's an element of failure, too, which I really appreciate."
Success has been part of Hu's experience, too.
Although Power Rangers RPM - the American superhero series in which she starred - didn't screen in New Zealand, it still has a legion of American fans.
This means Hu still gets invited to Power Rangers conventions where people sometimes pay her $50 for a selfie and autograph combo.
To pay the bills in New York, she also assists two artists - Haim Steinbach and Chitra Ganesh.
Right now, though, Hu is back in New Zealand, waiting for her US artists visa to be renewed and also feeling glad for her Kiwi passport.
"[In New York] I have front-row seats to the decline of the US empire and it's just a matter of how long I can handle it. It's pretty bleak and I'm lucky I can come back here.
"It was hard for me to get [overseas]. I'm older than people are when they usually go overseas for their OE. I'd seen my friends do it. I had to tie up a lot of things to be able to leave so I'm like 'this is my time'."
Until 4 September, Boney (Phoney) M is screening at Auckland‘s Te Tuhi gallery as part of Li-Ming Hu's show Elsewhere and Nowhere Else.
