Tribewanted: Vorovoro

This is a story about art attack. What started off as a quick sketch in my diary of the village turned into something massive…

… a map of the Vorovoro village complex.

My profession of choice is Graphic Design, with over nine years experience but its all mac stuff. No hand drawing or modelling etc. So to create a map from materials took me back to my art college days.

I found a piece of ply wood 8ft (wide) x 4ft (deep) and painted it deep green. Ants kept crawling all over it and getting stuck. They were painted over. Yellow was used to represent the path and beach, sand was sprinkled over the yellow for a textural effect. The sea was painted guess what colour? Yep, blue. A trip to the shoreline provided the shells to decorate the beach ‘n’ sea. Voila. The landscape was now complete for the next stage: building construction.

I found a thin piece of wood and cut the shapes out of various buildings. Pupu battered the crap out of some coconut husks providing perfect bure roofing. Nice one Pupu – gotta love that toothless smile. The guy’s a don. Bits of bamboo, driftwood and sticks were used to construct the walls. Mosquito nets were used for the hammocks. The (real life) recycling bin got raided for some blue-stringy plastic for the bucket shower. A couple of other tribees contributed their talents. For example, Toby made the pigs and chickens from cork while Pupu Peta made a smokin’ hot mini tree house.

The piece was finished off with a big V O R O V O R O – using coconut shells to represent the Os. The tagline reads sega na ka e dredre evuravara. It translates as: nothing is hard in this world (a Pupu quote). All the materials used were found on the island which fits in perfectly with the eco vibe of the place.

The whole piece took four weeks from start to finish. Work progress was interrupted with rash outbreaks and extreme weather. It was unveiled at the 18 month anniversary and watching people admire the piece left me buzzing. A natural high of satisfaction. The map was liked so much that All Saints Secondary School sent me a kerikeri for a map of their school. Oh gosh. Perhaps this is the way to continue my travels: Map making across the pacific islands… that would be cool.

Good night.