Inspiration
MOANA: The ocean becomes a symbol of connection rather than separation.
Year: 2025
Artist: Sheetol Chawla
Medium: Wearable Sculpture
Materials: Textile construction, mixed media.
Dimensions: (Insert dimensions )
Location of Inspiration
Aotearoa New Zealand
Cultural Foundation
MOANA was inspired by Aotearoa New Zealand’s profound relationship with the ocean. Surrounded by water and shaped by maritime histories, New Zealand’s identity is inseparable from the Pacific Ocean and the stories, journeys, and cultural exchanges it has enabled for centuries.
Across the Pacific, the ocean has long functioned not as a boundary but as a pathway—connecting people, cultures, knowledge systems, and traditions across vast distances. For generations, ocean navigation required an intimate understanding of stars, currents, weather, and the natural environment, creating sophisticated relationships between people and sea.
MOANA draws inspiration from this understanding of the ocean as a living presence: a force that shapes identity, movement, memory, and connection. The work reflects on the role of oceans in carrying stories, facilitating migration, and linking communities across geographical and cultural boundaries.
Within the work, the ocean becomes a symbol of both place and possibility—a reminder that movement, exchange, and connection have always been central to human history.
Personal Connection
As a migrant artist who moved from India to Aotearoa New Zealand, I have often reflected on the role oceans play in connecting people, cultures, and histories. Although oceans can appear to separate nations, they have also carried journeys, exchanges, and relationships across generations.
When developing MOANA, I found myself thinking about movement—not only physical movement between places, but also the movement of stories, traditions, memories, and identities. Living between cultures has given me an appreciation for the ways people carry aspects of home with them while continuing to build new relationships with place and community.
The ocean became a powerful metaphor for this experience. Constantly moving yet deeply connected, it reflects the ongoing relationship between past and present, origin and destination, heritage and belonging.
Through MOANA, I sought to explore these ideas while honouring Aotearoa’s oceanic identity and the enduring connections that exist between people, cultures, and the natural world.
Artist Reflection
The creation of MOANA expanded my understanding of the ocean as more than a landscape or natural environment. Throughout the development of the work, I became increasingly interested in the ways oceans connect rather than divide, creating pathways through which people, cultures, ideas, and histories travel.
The project encouraged me to think about movement as a fundamental part of human experience. Migration, exploration, exchange, and cultural dialogue have shaped societies throughout history, often through relationships with water. In this sense, the ocean becomes a powerful symbol of connection, adaptability, and shared humanity.
MOANA reinforced my belief that cultural identity is not static. It continues to evolve through encounters, exchanges, and relationships between people and places. The work serves as a reflection on these ongoing processes and on the role art can play in creating understanding across cultures.
Through MOANA, I came to see the ocean not only as a defining element of Aotearoa’s identity, but also as a universal reminder that connection often exists where we perceive distance.
MOANA in the Archive
MOANA forms part of an ongoing artistic archive exploring culture as a living repository of human memory. Within this broader body of work, the project investigates the ocean as a symbol of connection, movement, exchange, and cultural continuity.
While REINGA explores ancestry, belonging, and the relationship between people and place, MOANA considers the pathways that connect communities across time and distance. The work reflects on the role oceans have played throughout human history—not as barriers separating cultures, but as living networks through which knowledge, traditions, migration, and cultural exchange have travelled.
At the heart of the project is an interest in the ways identity is shaped through movement. Inspired by Aotearoa’s oceanic environment and the histories of navigation throughout the Pacific, MOANA explores how people carry stories, beliefs, and memories across generations while continually adapting to new places and experiences.
As a migrant artist living between cultures, I am particularly interested in the relationship between origin and destination, heritage and transformation. Through this lens, the ocean becomes both a physical and symbolic space—one that connects rather than divides, and one that reminds us that cultures are continually shaped through encounter, exchange, and dialogue.
MOANA exists alongside EOS, Black Lioness, REINGA, and Sculpted Geometry as part of a larger artistic investigation into culture, identity, memory, belonging, and diplomacy between nations. Together, these works explore the ways stories, traditions, beliefs, and histories help individuals and communities understand who they are and how they relate to one another.
Viewed within the archive, MOANA is not only a reflection on the ocean. It is a reflection on connection itself—on the journeys, exchanges, and relationships that continue to shape human experience across cultures, generations, and nations.
Acknowledgement
MOANA was created with deep respect for the oceanic histories, cultural traditions, and enduring relationships with the sea that have shaped Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Pacific region.
The work draws inspiration from the ocean as a source of identity, connection, navigation, and cultural exchange. Throughout history, oceans have carried people, stories, knowledge, and traditions across vast distances, creating relationships that continue to influence communities throughout the Pacific today.
The artist acknowledges the generations of navigators, voyagers, knowledge holders, and communities whose understanding of the ocean has contributed to the cultural heritage of Aotearoa and the Pacific. Their relationship with the natural world reflects a profound understanding of connection, stewardship, movement, and belonging.
MOANA is not intended to represent any specific cultural tradition or speak on behalf of Pacific or Māori communities. Rather, it is an artistic response inspired by the ocean’s enduring role as a connector between people, places, and histories.
Created from a position of respect, curiosity, and admiration, the work reflects an appreciation for the cultural narratives that continue to shape identities across the Pacific and for the ways these stories contribute to a deeper understanding of our shared humanity.
The project is offered as part of a broader artistic practice dedicated to cultural exploration, dialogue, and the belief that art can foster meaningful connections between people, cultures, and nations.