HD VIDEO, COLOR, SOUND, 3:31 MIN
Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of Institut Kunst HGK FHNW in Basel.

As part of the third and final voyage of TBA21–Academy’s ‘The Current II’ fellowship cycle ‘Spheric Ocean: Life For Beginners’ led by Chus Martínez, the Ocean Archive debuts the film ‘Hyena lullaby’ (2020) by Taloi Havini and Michael Toisuta.

Coral bleaching has become a common sight along reefs throughout the Pacific ocean as we witness the decline in the health of our coastal habitat environments from rising sea levels, unpredictable weather patterns and in our reliance on taking sustenance from the reef. Yet in all of this devastation, nature continually shows us signs of regeneration in a night-time ritual of mass coral-spawning - widely celebrated along the coastal regions of Bougainville and Buka Islands. The synchronised movements between the moon coinciding with the coral releasing new life, rising to the surface and floating along only to fall down into forming new corals along the reef, is an annual ritual that has been witnessed and celebrated with great excitement by Havini’s Nakas ancestors since time immemorial.

This video collaboration explores these non-linear textures and the cycles of life and death in an underwater phenomenon the Nakas people call Hyena.

CAMERA/EDITING: Taloi Havini
SOUND DESIGN: Michael Toisuta
EDITING/GRAPHICS: Miriana Marusic
VOCALS: Sana Balai 

Taloi Havini is an artist from Bougainville Island, in the Pacific. She currently lives and works in Sydney. From the Nakas clan, Hakö people, Havini was raised in the Autonomous Region of Arawa. Working with ceramics, photography, print, video, and mixed-media installations, Havini’s considered approach to art-making responds to the tensions and aftermath of the German plantations, Australian colonial mining pressures, and the deadly Bougainville conflict around indigenous land rights and independence of the 1990s. The youngest child of activist parents, Havini emigrated at the height of the war. Following her family’s political exile to Australia in 1990, Havini began to document her journeys home to the north of Buka Island, in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

Michael Toisuta grew up in Central Java, Indonesia. Since moving to Australia he has worked as a composer and sound designer for theatre, dance, film and video art installations. He has sound designed video art installations Habitat 2018 (Asia Pacific Triennial 2018) and Habitat (The National 2017); and short films Woodlands (Barcelona International Film Festival), Jyoti (Short Film Corner at Cannes Film Festival), Dance Diaries (Parramasala 2018) and Double Landscape (Bundanon Trust Siteworks 2016). His theatre credits include The Sugar House and Windmill Baby (Belvoir), Australian Graffiti (Sydney Theatre Company), The Man with the Iron Neck and My Bicycle Loves You (Legs on the Wall), White Pearl and Flight Paths (National Theatre of Parramatta), Made in America (TerryandTheCuz), Richard 3 (Bell Shakespeare) and Masquerade (Griffin & STCSA).