Climate Change Is Grim, Says Toganivalu
For Fiji climate change is not only a reality, it is also grim says local artist Josua Toganivalu as he describes his art piece on climate change labelled Masking Climate Change. Mr Toganivalu who is from Bau, said his piece of art was in support of the FijiFirst Government for their presidency at the COP23 currently held at Bonn, Germany. “My piece is based on climate change, climate change is not only affecting Fiji but the world as a whole,” Mr Toganivalu said. Describing his piece of work, he said as a young boy, while growing up, gas masks were warning symbols.
“The gas mask represents our last line of defence against a possible chemical attack or God forbid, a nuclear holocaust,” Mr Toganivalu said.
“As a Pacific Islander in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, such a thought was always at the back of my mind, but today we are faced with a much greater threat, climate change,” he said.
“It is something we cannot mask ourselves or the world around us, from behind our own masks, we also enjoy the illusion of safety and our own individual distorted perception.
“But our muffled voice, should in no way limit our future choices.”
He is a self-taught artist who lives a double career as a computer graphic designer and as a visual paint artist.
“I credit my artistic career to my early days at the Oceania Centre under the guidance of the late Professor Epeli Hau’ofa and my art teacher, John Poole,” he said.
Graduating from the Fiji Institute of Technology in graphic design in 1997, he has worked as a graphic designer for various leading media and advertising agencies in Fiji and Tonga. “I was also one of the founding members and creative director of Fiji’s most popular lifestyle magazine, Mai Life, I have been actively exhibiting my artwork since 1998.
“As a Fijian artist, I feel it is important that I maintain the identity our ancestors portrayed with their works in terms of the earth colours, but I have modified them with my designs and stories,” he said. “Most of his paintings depict the earth colors and motifs as seen on masi and tapa; burnt sienna, umber and charcoal.
Mr Toganivalu works have found a home in many prominent institutions, hotels and homes around Fiji and increasingly worldwide.” Meanwhile, most of his most prominent pieces are on display at private and museum collections in Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, China, Europe, and the United States.