Torres Strait 8 | Daniel Billy Interview

The Torres Strait 8 are a group of claimants and Traditional Owners from Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait Islands) taking the Australian government to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations for its inaction over climate change. Zenadh Kes is home to Torres Strait Islanders who have lived with a deep connection to land, sea, sky and culture for over 60,000 years. The people of Zenadh Kes are on the front line of climate change with rising sea levels, increasing extreme weather events and coastal erosion affecting the 18 inhabited islands in the region and threatening many communities’ way of life and culture.

For the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, the Torres Strait 8 participate with a hybrid art-as-protest work led by Masig cultural practitioner Yessie Mosby. Yessie has carved a series of new totem poles from materials, pigments and fibres found on the Islands. The mythological totems share stories of ancestral beings in deep saltwater. These stories are interconnected with the current climate trauma the communities are experiencing, Yessie says ‘we will be the first climate refugees in this country.’ The collective’s participation magnifies the activism of the Our Islands Our Home campaign fighting for justice for the communities of Zenadh Kes and holding the Australian Government to account on climate change policy.