Urapun Kai Buai (One big kin)

Torres Strait Islanders are all related to each other; or so my grandparents, uncles and aunties told me when I was young. Growing up in the islands has made me see and realise that. The sharing of food and traditional visits and staying over, in the village or on neighbouring islands, called Garab Thiay, are important kinship events.

Wongai is a native fruit of our region and I use it as a metaphor for kinship. Therefore it is placed at the very centre of this piece. The wavy lines going outwards represent the movement of relatives to all four corners of the Straits. This happened mainly through intermarriage.

Identical patterns on either side of the work represent relatives to the East, West, North and South of our region. Tight, strong patterns represent the bonds between extended families. These were maintained through the practice of culture, through the choreography of dances, song and through Garab Thiay traditional visits.

In this work the seeds of the Wongai represent the beginnings of a family on another island. The leaves or plants represent the family growing there. The bearing of fruit represents a generation of children.

Today the increase in intermarriage has made it far more complicated for modern Torres Strait Islanders to understand their family relationships. The patterns on the far left and right represent the fact that it is very important to our current elders to pass on the knowledge of these movements of people; for our kinship knowledge to be available to the younger generations, so they can know and consider them.

In the late 1800s the first genealogy of the Torres Strait was recorded by Rivers as a part of the A. C. Haddon expedition. Later, in 1901, it was released in six volumes and through the journals and tables of family trees you can understand these relationships.

All of this has inspired me to turn the oral history and written journals into a work of visual art and to call it Urapun Kai Buai (One big kin).

This is a touring exhibition proudly supported by

Urapun Kai Buai a Djumbunji Press KickArts Fine Art Printmaking Exhibition
The Queensland Government is the foundation partner of Djumbunji Press through its Backing Indigenous Arts program