Transcript
FE'ENA SYME-BUCHANAN: There were so many. You really couldn't avoid it. As soon as you get on to Mangaia, you notice that for the first 15 minutes of your drive there are no houses. It's just, it's almost completely untouched. Then you enter Oneroa which I would say is the main village, that's where most people are residing now, and the first thing I notice was that there were many houses that were unoccupied and it made me think, where is everyone? Even driving along, you drive for hours and you'd only see two people. And then once I got closer started exploring the homes, started exploring the villages, I realised that people had left their belongings behind, there were photographs that were still hung up, their were suitcases, there were clothes. It was really quite pognant because it made me think that wow, people really wanted to leave and these homes were quite old as well which also told me that they hadn't been back in years. What I also noticed as well is that there were a lot of unfinished homes so people had returned to Mangaia to start building and for whatever reason, maybe they ran out money, maybe came that time they had to go back to Rarotonga, they just remained unfinished.
SALLY ROUND: those were the basis photos, then you've developed it further for this exhibition haven't you? Can you tell me about some of the photos you've taken recently?
F S-B: So some of the recent photographs I took were a lot more focused on the lifestyle that people lived. I wanted to take things that were quite unique to Mangaia which were like some of the food, the markets and also some of the things that they do to well preserve their traditions like for example, in Mangaia when it rains they go out to get pupu which is a type of snail and they collect these snails and they sell necklaces from them and they make a living from which was really interesting and I wanted to show that actually there are people here and they're doing something about living here and also I wanted to show agriculture is one thing that maybe a solution for Mangaia because it is the island's strength, it is known as the food bowl of the southern group and so that's what they need to go back to. I wanted to document the planters and the farmers doing what they do best and also selling their at the Friday morning market.
SR: So what do you hope to show with this exhibition, what do you hope people will take away from it?
FS-B: What I want them to take away from it is that despite our country being absolutely stunning , you know, with our sunsets and our mountains and our people that while this is something that's very real, it's an issue that is very real, we may not really see it in Rarotonga because everything's thriving over here, this is something that [people need to be aware of and they need to start doing something about it especially our government . It feels hypocritical for our government to say that we need to protect the island but at the same time (inaudible) them. Like in Mangaia there's no doctor. there's no dentist and these are the sort of things that are basic public health services that any island needs but there's none of that.