Taloi Havini

Sculpture (Sculpture)

Following her family’s political exile to Australia in 1990, Havini began to document her journey’s home to the north of Buka Island, in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Reflecting on the still visible aftermath of conflict and changing economic factors, Havini creates traditional beroana or shell money from extracted earth materials only found on Solomon islands like Bougainville. Havini’s whirling assemblage of ceramic discs emulate the strings of shell money (still valid around the Pacific as system of payments) to examine the economic changes that occurred in her homeland.