The theme of water connects two adjacent installations, Pacific Currents and Billabong Dreams. Waterways in their myriad manifestations—rivers, Australian billabongs, saltwater seas—are not only places for navigation and subsistence; they contain great ancestral forces that have shaped the lives and laws of indigenous people across the Pacific.

The essence of water as “life-giving” is affirmed in rituals where sea-bears, frigate birds, crocodiles, lightning snakes and undersea chiefs preside, yet the inherently dangerous aspect of deep, powerful and mysterious water features is acknowledged. This duality in the character of water is expressed in symbolic visual vocabularies—often represented in abstract forms—that reveal the abiding, but tenuous, threshold between humans and the beings that dwell in the waterways. Knowledge passed down through generations, ceremonies, and life-experiences can provide a degree of safety while on the water, but danger is ever-present and requires the anticipated intervention of ancestors and elders.

Today, canoes continue to traverse the waters of the Pacific highway. New generations, honoring the old, are activists for environmental protection and maintaining sovereignty over their territories of land and water. Events like the bi-annual Canoe Journey hosted by indigenous coastal nations bring forward ancient teachings about mindful living on the water, among its magnificent creatures.