As a non-Pacific Islander, I was always captivated by the allure of arts and culture in the Pacific region. I found the motifs intricate, the colours vivid, and there is a deep-rooted cultural significance for the pieces created. I wanted to explore this tapestry of arts better, so I attended the Fijian Comics workshop at Alliance Française de Suva held in Fiji.
Growing up, I was always a fan of comics, but as a non-artistic person, I never understood the significance of the characters and the environment surrounding them. For an avid reader like me, Superman is only Superman; Wonder Woman is only Wonder Woman, nothing more beyond the 2-D flat characters. Little did I know that soon, this attitude would change.
I attended the workshop on an exceptionally rainy day in Suva, Fiji. I was reluctant that anyone would brave the weather and come to the session. Yet, moments in, I could see groups of people, young and old, discussing their shared common passion. It then sparked in my head. For children, comic books are the enchanted portals to imagination's realm, unleashing dreams and heroes within their hearts. For adults, it’s an ink-stained companion whispering tales of resilience, evoking nostalgia, and tackling societal topics.
I met Tui Ledua, the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Graphic Designer, whose passion for sharing his knowledge and skills is only compared to his love of life. Tui made me realise that Pacific art is not merely a static product to be admired but a living, breathing entity that thrives on exchanging skills and knowledge.
Tui joined SPC in 2021 but has been in the domain for eight years. Before joining, he worked as an animator in Fiji and started freelancing from home, covering different topics in the private sector. “My mom was so happy that I found a proper job. I wasn’t working in my Pyjamas from home, and I broke the misconception she had that it’s not a real job”, expressed Tui. “I have this structured organisation that made me happy. I have a real job” explained Tui about joining SPC.
The more he spoke about SPC, the more I understood the common values he shared with the organisation. The culture of skill sharing is rooted deep down within the organisation in all its divisions and people. It’s reflected in SPC’s internship programmes, internal workshops, lessons learned reports and communities of practice. It’s about working together to bridge the knowledge gap, learn from each other’s mistakes and achievements, and then integrate them, which is critical to mutual growth and empowerment. That’s the Pacific way and has been for thousands of years, and that was Tui’s aim. He mentioned his predecessor at the organisation and how he taught and guided him in his early career. Tui now feels the responsibility to do the same. He understands the importance of skill sharing and tries to do it whenever possible. That’s one of the reasons he’s attending this workshop.
Before joining SPC and during his freelancing time, though he was his boss, Tui worked many hours and slept less. He was working hard to break the stigma about Pacific artists. According to him, due to the time difference from other countries, people assume that artists in the Pacific take time to finish their products. “There is a stigma attached to the word Pacific and the word artist. And if you put the words Pacific and artists together, straight away, people think this will be late. Some organisations would find it difficult to trust artists they haven't worked with”. Tui continues, “I found that if you could persistently deliver on time, that would be extremely valuable. I think many artists worry about perfecting everything and forget that isn't what the client wants.
Clients need reliability the most”.
Regardless of the challenges, Tui always persisted. Before the internet, he sent his drawings and material by post to other countries. He explains some other challenges artists in the Pacific face:” They [Pacific artists] need to make their work look like people in the Pacific. If you can make it look like us, there's a very small pool of artists drawing Pacific Islanders. And if you can specialise in that, you would serve so many organisations and people to help the region”.
Sometimes you can almost feel the passion when someone is talking. I wanted to know more about what inspired him to follow this path. “When I was young, I loved this illustrator called Linden Lions, who used to draw for the Fiji Sun in the eighties. He had the most amazing cartoons because the characters looked like the people that you'd see on the street. It was the first time for me to see a cartoonist draw really funny pictures with people reacting the way people reacted. The people that you see every day, the clothes that they wear, their hairstyles... And the humour was really local. He was one of the first people to inspire me to draw things that people could recognize every day”.
Talking with Tui, I was thinking about the comics I grew up with and how they connected to my environment and culture, thus making me feel part of the story. I wanted to know more about how Tui’s Pacific heritage influenced his style and work.
“I'm trying to make things look Pacific. It's the foliage, it's the colours. But then, sometimes, you don't have the luxury of colours when you're trying to create an illustration. So, how do I get around that? By the features. I like to capture people. I try to capture moments in the middle of a conversation, or as people are moving, I like to capture that emotion”.
Discussing his work with SPC, I got a clearer idea about how an artist can work in the rigid development sector. From him, I understood that in the Pacific, art transcends the realm of mere decoration and instead finds its purpose in practicality, storytelling, and delivering complex information with ease. He could translate data into thought-provoking illustrations and powerful tools to captivate numbers and figures visually.
“It wasn't scientists talking to other scientists, it was scientists talking to people or whoever was gathering data. It was delivering that data to people who use the data. And the people who use the data are people like us. I mean, well, people like me who are just the everyday person on the street. So, it was all about making a piece of really complex information digestible, bringing it to bite-size; if you were to take that data and put it into a funny cartoon like that, people would see that in 2 seconds to receive the information. It's registered in their brain”, explained Tui about his projects with SPC. “In the Pacific, art always had some practical use. Things were created, but there was a use for it”.
The workshop was starting soon, and I was
looking around and checking the participants. Some were as young as 10 years old, others were adults. Kids from different backgrounds and cultures were joining the session, and that got me curio
us. How do the Pacific artists interact with youths? How do they engage and encourage them to explore their creativity and heritage?
According to Tui, besides sharing his passion, it’s about finding out what they love. It’s about persistence and the power to keep pushing forward while mastering your skills and style.
“Don't be satisfied with where you are. Try and better yourself. It's all about finding out what you’re good at, and what joy drawing brings because not everybody likes drawing the same things and you don't have to draw the way I draw to be successful”, explained Tui.
He continues: “You must find out what your style is and build on that. From there, find out what it is that you're passionate about drawing and build on.
that, get better and better. That is your craft. You need to sharpen it and hone your craft so that you become the best that you can be at whatever you are doing”.
While talking about the Pacific people and art, I could see a great smile drawing on Tui’s face. He’s trying to uplift the work done at SPC through art, capturing and sharing moments of impact. He’s trying to bridge the gap that previously relied on generic portrayals from other regions to his Pacific touch.
The workshop starts. Everyone listens carefully to every word Tui says, observing every hand gesture and pencil stroke. He starts explaining his illustration work.
“Comic books are a fun way of getting kids to understand the fundamentals of telling stories with images. It's also my opportunity to talk to kids and say, hey, this is an actual job”, expressed Tui. He continues: “You can do this for a living, but small print, you need to treat it like a job. You have to get up and draw every day.”
Tui is more than an artist. He’s representing his predecessors, like him before, bestowed their secrets upon the next generation through formal rituals and informal gatherings. It wasn’t a workshop I attended. It was a handing down knowledge ceremony.
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