Joel Sam – Exodus
Event by Cairns Art Gallery.
Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.
Joel Sam was born in 1977 on Thursday Island, Torres Strait, Queensland. Sam is a Saibai artist of the Sui Baidam clan.
Exodus is a personal account of the mass movement of people in the 1940s from the island of Saibai in the Torres Strait to Mutee Heads on Cape York Peninsula. Saibai is a large low-lying island 5km south of Papua New Guinea and is a north western island of the Zenadh Kes archipelago.
While on active duty during WWII, a group of young Saibai soldiers identified the tip of Cape York as a place for future settlement because the island of Saibai was facing increasing hardship due to monsoonal flooding, a scarcity of good drinking water and firewood, and limited accommodation. After a series of meetings between the young men and their Elders, it was decided that the people of Saibai should relocate to the Australian mainland where a new settlement would be established at the tip of Cape York Peninsula.
In 1946, several luggers were purchased to facilitate the move some 164km away. MV Millard carried the Samu clan, Macoy carried the Umay clan, and S.S. Donna carried the Dhoeybaw clan. By 1949 almost 300 Saibai Islanders had been moved to the peninsula, first to Mutee Heads, then to Bamaga and later to Seisia. Despite their relocation their connections to Saibai cultural ways have never been lost.
This exhibition is supported through a Cairns RSL Club Artist Fellowship that enabled Joel Sam to develop new linocuts, etchings, dhibal (feathered headdresses), dibi dibi (pearl shell pendants), and an outrigger canoe which represent the songs, dance and ceremonies that the families took to their new mudth, their new home on mainland Australia.
For more information on the pieces being exhibited visit Cairns Art Gallery website.
Exhibition Runs: 7 July till 3 Sept 2023
Cost: Free Entry!
IMAGE: Joel SAM / Kongasu 2023 / vinylcut / 60 x 100 cm / Courtesy of the artist / Photo: Michael Marzik
Please check directly with the Cairns Art Gallery to confirm opening hours on Public Holidays as these may change.
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