Exploring the gender politics and racial tensions of Stevenson’s novella, Simon Grennan has been playing with depictions of character, culture and storytelling in his graphic adaptation. From the recovery and repositioning of the Kiribati bride, Uma, to the invocation of shadow theatre and nineteenth century melodrama, Grennan is examining how variations in character portrayals – imagining characters at different ages, in different clothing, as having different body shapes and sizes – can affect the power relations inherent in the narrative itself.

Bringing these ideas about character, representation and culture into his participatory art workshops with schoolchildren in Honolulu, Apia and Edinburgh, Grennan is encouraging learners and workshop participants to consider their relationship to past traditions, ideologies and artifacts, in ways that make space for perspectives and voices typically unheard in the Western canon of imperial-era texts.

Participants’ work is informing Simon’s thinking about past and present (re)readings of The Beach at Falesá, articulated according to readers’ and participants’ different experiences of Sāmoa, Scotland and Hawai’i.