Te Ma (Fish Trap)

Te Ma (Fish Trap) is an elegant sculpture created from over 8000 pairs of ringed venus shells that Charteris, along with family members, collected from his local beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. Over seven meters in length, the work replicates the unique and traditional i-Kiribati fish traps lining the shore of Tarawa, which Charteris and his family viewed from the air on their first journey to Kiribati in 2012. The sinuous, heart-shaped structures are created by stacking broken coral walls into the shallows between the reef and the ocean, with a single lane that guides fish into the structure and traps them with the outgoing tide. The innovative and permanent structures are sizeable, some stretching over 100 metres across the shoreline, and are collectively owned and cared for by coastal communities who depend on fish for daily sustenance.

Highlighting their natural beauty – and drawing on this potent symbol of connection, community and life – Charteris has created a work that uses readily available resources to invite audiences to reflect on a shared responsibility to build and maintain sustainable structures of communal well-being.

People coming together and the massing of individual objects reference the ideas of the collective, an intrinsic aspect of i-Kiribati culture. The significance of this concept is embedded in the name the Indigenous inhabitants gave to the coral atolls comprising their homeland – Tungaru, which means ‘gathering

together in a joyous kind of way’. This work celebrates i-Kiribati culture and provides new forms of connection, growth and sustenance for the people of this unique island nation and its diaspora.

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