Moana Oceania - Banaba - Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi

Banaba

Hessian “phosphate sack" with applique of cotton and calico pinnacles representing the mining and shipment of phosphate lands from Banaba to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand from 1900-1980.
Illustration by Cecelia Faumuina

Banaban arts of the land and the people

Project Banaba: A Dialogue on Exhibition Collaboration & Methods

Click here to read a discussion between artist and scholar Katerina Teaiwa and artist and curator Yuki Kihara about their collaborative exhibition. Project Banaba—the origins of the project, the exhibition process, and its various iterations in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and beyond between 2017 and 2022.  First staged at Carriage works in Sydney, the multimedia exhibition follows the historical path of colonial-eraphosphate mining on Banaba; phosphate fertiliser production, distribution, and consumption; displaced Banaban life; and associated archives, images, stories, and media. Project Banaba engages the communities where it is shown—both in a historic and a contemporary sense—while reflecting on imperialism, the movement of Indigenous lands and peoples through mining, the complicated Indigenous kinships resulting from this history, and the cultural revitalization and resilience of Banabans and other Pacific Islanders.