Word: islands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Tuala's tree sculpture was created as part of the 10th Festival of Pacific Arts in Pago Pago during July and August. More than any other event, this festival (held every four years; the next will be in Honiara, Solomon Islands) has helped shape the region as an arc of creativity. "It's a positive thing," says Samoan - New Zealand hip-hop artist King Kapisi, "to have Pacific island communities meet up at one place and say, Listen, we're still here and giving respect to our heritage. Once you lose your culture, you don't know where you come...
...artists from 22 countries filled Pago Pago's Veterans Memorial Stadium for the July 21 opening, cultural diversity was everywhere on show - from the striking syncopation of Tahitian hula to folksy bamboo-flute-playing Solomon Islanders to the fierce bow-and-arrow dancers of Torres Strait. The stadium bristled with plumage, war paint and woven lava-lavas as the various island delegations (Papua New Guinea sent 170 people) vied for the audience's affections. "There was a highly competitive air," observes Wesley Enoch, artistic director of Australia's delegation, "especially around the dancing. They want to impress...
...discovered Torres Strait Islander artist and dancer Alick Tipoti. Through his award-winning black-and-white linocut prints, Tipoti has translated designs traditionally carved on dance apparatus and drums to museum walls in Washington and Dusseldorf. The three festivals he's attended have introduced him to a wider network of artistic influence. "We are the most western part of the Pacific, which is tied together through traditional designs," says the Thursday Island-born artist, who has traced Torres Strait motifs back to the New Zealand Maori via "the Solomon Islands, Palau and across to Hawaii...
...Helping spread these artistic influences is a shared legacy of language. As part of his cultural upbringing, Tipoti spent time with a Torres Strait elder and linguist, the late Ephraim Bani. "Through his teaching I learned that our western island language is connected to the Cape York and northern Aboriginal people," he recalls, "and the eastern island language is connected to the coastal villages of Papua New Guinea. Adding to that, our language is very strongly connected to all the Pacific islands. We're part of that network. And that's why I'm really proud to be part...
...Ensconced in the Australian delegation's thatched fale in the festival village, Laifoo has also been conducting print workshops with other islanders. Through his teemingly detailed linocut carvings, Laifoo records the stories of his island, from the signs of turtle-mating season (the turtles turn clockwise) to the 1977 oil spill that signaled the end of the pearl-diving industry. "I believe in preserving culture through arts and song," he says, "to revitalize them and start a new wave through our culture...