Title: Invisible Territories
Year: 2013
Length: 08:55
Format: Single-channel video
Invisible Territories is a video work comprised of footage taken during Aukafolau’s first trip to Tonga with her father and uncle to their homeland in ‘O‘ua Ha‘apai. Adopting the role of an observer, her participation in the journey is guided not by personal way-finding intentions but rather attempts to situate and orient her experience of place within her father and uncle’s collective memory of ‘O‘ua. Throughout the installation there are glimpses of boat journeys at different times of the day capturing the activity at sea; the offload of goods and the boarding and disembarking of ferry passengers. The flurry of activity at sea brings to life the importance of the ocean as a means of travel and communication, evoking the prophetic visions of the late ‘Epeli Hauofa and his notion of a ‘Sea of Islands’ where Pacific islands are connected rather than separated by the sea.
– Epeli Hauofa. “Our Sea of Islands” in In A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands, edited by Vijay Naidu, Eric Waddell, and Epeli Hau‘ofa. Suva: School of Social and Economic Development, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, 1993, 147–161.