“Our We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood.”

— Teresia Teaiwa

Saltwater is the key ingredient for the building blocks of life. It is also the essence of who we are as Solwara and Moana peoples of Oceania.

This living and breathing heartbeat knows no bounds; an entity that acts as a highway we continue to navigate which connects, separates, sustains, threatens, heals and purifies. SALTWATER/ Interconnectivity has been shaped to reference these traits which reflect the critical relationships, worldviews and shared histories of Indigenous Solwara and Moana peoples.

As change-agents, the artists are a collective voice of the urban Moana and Solwara, weaving the past with the present to inform the future as they draw upon their own lived realities to investigate old and adapted systems of spirituality, social justice, equity, gender, sexuality, language diaspora, and ancestral knowledge.

SALTWATER/Interconnectivity is a point in time to come together amid an ever-changing landscape. A space to talanoa, celebrate, and critique our ways of life. A place to share our experiences within an ecosystem of complexities that inform who we are as saltwater people.

 “Ka mua, ka muri (walking backwards into the future).”

— Whakatauki