The Torres Strait Islands and the island nation of Niue have a long shared history and their connection is now permanently showcased as part of a new mural at the island's broadcast studios.
Tori-Jay Mordey, an accomplished mural artist and illustrator from Thursday Island, with work previously projected onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons for Vivid, is one half of the artistic duo who brought the mural to life.
Credit: Conscious Mic/Poasa Veidreyaki
To reflect connection and the importance of culture and community, Mordey included a pair of hands weaving and the morning glory vines found on the Torres Strait.
“I wanted to really have those as a feature in this mural because I’ve had my grandad’s brothers explain to me up in the Torres Straits that those vines specifically represent community,” Mordey said.
“[The vines] are so hard to pull from the ground because of how intertwined and deep rooted and linked they are, and he always expressed to me that is what community is.
“When people are working together and are one whole entity like that, they're much stronger when they’re together,” Mordey said.
Mordey told NITV she was proud her first international mural was in Niue and added that she always aims to bring vibrancy to the space she's painting in.
“With a lot of the street art murals I do, my main focus has always been to really brighten up the place, but also in some circumstances bring a lot of calmness to the area as well as some fun energy and I think we very much do that with this mural,” Mordey said.
Vakaafi chose features to reflect his Niuean culture.
“The canoe itself symbolises a new beginning because the canoe, if you think in the traditional way, our ancestors used them to travel to different islands, different places to find a new beginning,” Vakaafi said.
He also included a motif with thirteen spears to represent the thirteen villages on the island and hiapo patterns (traditional cloth derived from tree bark).
“I did [the motif] in the shape of a sun because a really big aspect of our broadcasting corporation is our radio station and it's called Radio Sunshine… all those elements represent Niue,” Vakaafi said.
Vakaafi said the addition of the mural to the BCN building means a lot for the community, and especially the elderly, who rely heavily on the broadcasting corporation for their information and news.
Work in progress: the mural coming together and Vakaafi's spears motif on the right. Source: Supplied
“While we were creating there was quite a bit of traffic,” Vakaafi laughed. “There’s an offroad that comes around the area so there were quite a few cars coming to have a nosey of what we were doing.”
The restoration project of the broadcast studios was supported by funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and managed by ABC International Development (ABCID).
Lisa Villiamu, a resident of Niue and Creative Director of Conscious Mic brought Mordey on board for the project.
Villiamu said together with the Australian High Commission, she wanted to find a way to showcase the “beautiful connection between Australia and Niue”.
When they landed on a mural, she had the just the artist in mind.
“I really resonated with her style and I thought she was the perfect person for this project being an island girl, being Torres Strait Islander,” Villiamu said.
“...we thought it was a really meaningful collaboration between Tori representing that region, as well as wider Australia.”
Vakaafi called the experience of collaborating with Mordey, especially sharing the similarities and differences between Niue and the Torres Strait Islands “eye-opening”.
For Mordey, working on Niue felt like coming home.
“Being an islander myself it already felt like another home to me," she said.
"I felt like I very naturally came into this environment and meeting the people here, it just felt very homely.”
Vakaafi said he hopes the mural stands as an inspiration to the rest of the community, especially the younger generation.
“It is quite unique to Niue because it’s not a regular thing that you see around here - murals and art on the street,” Vakaafi said.
“For me and Tori to put something new out there, something lively, something with lots of colour, it can actually inspire a lot of the community.
"Hopefully this can expand into more of the younger generation seeing that this is possible to do here so that they can pursue their own endeavours.”
