Why you must see Project Banaba – an Exhibition by Katerina Teaiwa
I was already in awe of Katerina Teaiwa, or should I say Professor Dr Katerina Teaiwa. What a powerhouse. She is a Professor at Australia National University, recently winning the 2021 Australian University Teacher of the Year Award – the first indigenous woman from the Pacific to do both. She is a contemporary Pacific dancer, co-founding the Oceania Dance Theatre at the University of the South Pacific. She’s a multi-media artist. She is an activist.
Most importantly, she is a daughter of the Pacific, of Banaban, i-Kiribati and African American heritage.
For Pacific Islanders, we say the name of Banaba with a whisper. It is the place where greed and colonisation destroyed the land and displaced its people – with hardly a ripple in the collective ‘other’ social conscience.
Already reeling after the atrocities of World War II, Banaba was identified by England, Australia and New Zealand as a rich source of phosphate. Soon after, the land was raped, mined and destroyed to the point where Banabans could no longer live there. Their entire population had to be relocated to the island of Rabi off the coast of Fiji – graciously chosen and bought for the Banabans through a ridiculously low settlement by the English High Court. The island had been owned by the Lever Brothers (of Unilever fame) who wanted to sell after they’d finished using the land to grow copra. So according to the English High Court – it was all happily taken care of – problem solved. Done and dusted.
How would you feel to have your whenua ripped up, the bones of your ancestors ground up to be made into fertilizer and spread over farmland in Australia and New Zealand. How would you feel to say goodbye to the land of your heart, where your language and culture thrived? How would you feel to have no choice but to be uprooted to live on another island whose people had already suffered under colonisation? How would you feel to live on a land so different from your own that you have to re-learn how to grow food, how to adjust to a damper climate, to live within another land with a different culture and language? How would you feel to know you can’t go home?
How would you feel?
It is with this heartbreaking reality that Katerina Teaiwa created her art. And it’s for this reason, if you are an indigenous person this isn’t just an exhibition.
On entrance you’re presented with a map of the region. Clusters of islands sit like stars on the inky deep blue ocean. There is Banaba, sitting in what it now Kiribati. I see my mother’s birthplace so nearby – a tiny dot that is almost never seen on maps. Further north I see the island where my uncle was born and buried as a baby. How close they are to Banaba.
I take a deep breath. The air feels charged - thick and heavy with palpable grief.
As I turn, I can see art suspended from the ceiling. Black and white photography on silky material moving in the slight breeze. Faces of people looking to camera. Groups of dancers. Families posing. Photos that capture moments in history when Banaba was alive. It’s jarring to see so many images that are like photos in my own family albums. I shake my head to stop my eyes from transposing the faces of my mother, my grandparents, my ancestors, onto the silk. I try to focus on the faces clearly. It’s difficult to look into their eyes knowing what is to come. What they don’t know yet.
I can feel my ancestors telling me to look at them - to see them.
In between these silky bookmarks in time are suspended hessian sacks screenprinted with quotes from the Fertilizer company. Almost cheery in fashion, they say the most jarring things about not resisting the taking of land, about the fortune that was to be made, and more. There is a juxtaposition between the smooth silky photography with the rough and heavy hessian that shows the contrast between the happiness of a culture that then had to face such brutality with no option but to agree.
Playing on the wall is a three-panel video screen that plays Mine Lands, for Teresia – a compilation of Banaban footage from the 20th and 21st century, modern day Banabans living in Rabi, and the mining of Banaba with colonial officials. The soundtrack switches between a jarring jingle from an Australian TV show to the sound of happy laughing Banaban children then moves to a poem of the grieving woman whose connection with the land has been stolen.
On the walls are clusters of photographs. Katerina calls them a photographic ‘coral reef’. They feature coloured family photographs from Teaiwa balanced with black and white photographs of the Phosphate Cooperative of Australia. Then, and now.
Project Banaba is a complete sensory experience.
As I finish walking around, between and through the artwork I feel a stiffness in my neck. I’ve been swallowing the scream that keeps rising up to my throat at the horror of what happened. Tears are close, but I feel my ancestors telling me to look at it all. To look at every face, to hear every word and remember.
Right now, in a world where our islands are facing the catastrophic impacts of colonisation again and again, through deep sea mining, land misuse, climate change and more Project Banaba reminds us of what can happen.
We’re still screaming, but nobody is listening. Colonised conversations about our homes taking place without us. The Pacific, where big powers continue to play power games.
This is why you must see this exhibition. It reminds us that we need to remember the Banabans. Listen to them when they tell us to keep shouting to be heard. To keep fighting for our futures.
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Listen to Katarina talk about Project Banaba here.
Project Banaba and Te Kaneati are co-curated by Te Uru, Auckland Banaban Christian Fellowship Support Hub and Yuki Kihara in close consultation with Katerina Teaiwa. Te Kaneati is supported by CNZ and Corbans Pacifika Arts Center.
For a photo essay on the Banaban diaspora click here.
To read an incredible conversation between Katerina Teaiwa and Michael Fitzgerald click here.
The exhibition runs from 5 March – 29 May 2022
Te Uru: Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
420 Titirangi Road
Titirangi
Auckland
Review by Karin Hall