"Tribute"
by Maria Rova 2012
Medium: Dyes and resist on silk
Size: 76 x 50 cm
Medium: Dyes and resist on silk
Size: 76 x 50 cm
This
painting was newly created as a tribute to the seven Pacific Voyager vaka or
double hulled sailing canoes, which have just completed an epic journey across
the Pacific Ocean. Spearheaded by
Okeanos – Foundation for the Sea, the vaka project has seen indigenous people
from island nations across the Pacific collaborate to revive traditional
navigation methods, while spawning new interest in the preservation of cultural
practices and respect for our ocean environment. Using the power of wind and sun to sail
through the Pacific archipelagos and across to North America and back, our vaka
sailing crews have become local heroes – bringing marine conservation, and pride
in indigenous traditions, into the headlines of our mainstream media, and into
the conversations of Pacific islanders across all generational and cultural
divides...
As
part of the celebrations marking the safe return of the seven vaka to Fiji in
June 2012, a number of local artists participated in “Oceans Alive”, an
exhibition of fine art held at the Fiji Museum in Suva. “Tribute” was created especially for this
event. The initial ideas that I had for
the painting led me on my own interesting voyage of discovery: researching about the traditional navigation
methods that enabled settlement and trade throughout the far flung islands of
the Pacific – involving remarkable feats of endurance, skill, and a close,
knowledgeable affinity to the natural
world.
“Tribute”
features the key methods used by our voyaging ancestors – and by the vaka crews
of today: Charting the stars, observing
the positions of sun and moon, noting the direction of prevailing winds,
currents, and swells... Watching for
significant cloud formations, reading clues in the presence of plant debris
floating by, observing the migration patterns of ocean wildlife, while drawing
on the vast knowledge and guidance of sea-faring elders; these skills coupled
with the self-reliance and survival skills still found in many of Fiji’s outer
islands were the forerunners of modern day GPS...
The
mesh of knotted sticks in the corner of “Tribute” represents a traditional
Polynesian stick chart, used by sailors to show the direction of currents,
wind, and waves. Small shells fastened
to the sticks represented the position of islands.
When
a flock of Greater Frigate birds circled high over our home not long ago, their
stark black, prehistoric-looking forms silhouetted against fast-moving clouds, my
studio team exclaimed excitedly that there was bad weather on its way – the kasaqa
would not be flying inland like this otherwise.
I was intrigued by this local form of weather forecasting (it proved
true – this was the week of the huge floods we had here in Nadi last March!) –
and delighted to discover when working on this painting that frigate birds were
also important to ancient Pacific navigators:
remarkably, this species does not have the natural oil found in the
feathers of most seabirds, meaning that they cannot land on water to rest
mid-flight. They therefore never venture
more than about 50 kilometres away from land, in order to be able to return to
solid ground before exhaustion sets in! For
this reason, traditional Pacific sailors used the sighting of frigate birds to
guide them to land not yet visible beyond the horizon... I will definitely be
painting more of these unusual birds in future compositions!
Last
but not least, this painting includes the forms of seven vaka, their twin, triangular
sails filled with wind. Six of the
canoes, each representing a specific island nation, have rust-coloured sails, while
the sails of the seventh vessel, with its international, pan-Pacific crew, are
white. With the forces of nature
portrayed with dynamic movement of shape and line, I have tried to reflect both
the vulnerability of the vaka, and their sense of purpose as the spread their
message of ocean conservation to the rest of the world.
For more information about the Pacific
Voyagers project, visit http://www.pacificvoyagers.com
