The Luku and the Lion confronts a moment when small Pacific island communities were drawn into the vast machinery of global war. In 1915, 150 Niuean men left a homeland shaped by cultivation, kinship, and Christian order and entered a conflict driven by imperial ambition and industrial violence. Their participation was shaped by loyalty to the Crown and a deeply embedded religious faith that framed service as moral duty.
This exhibition considers what happens when belief becomes mobilisation. It addresses the cultural and psychological rupture experienced by Pacific men encountering mechanised warfare, foreign hierarchies, and collapsing European powers for the first time. The scale of the work mirrors the scale of that dislocation — direct, saturated, and unflinching.
At its core, the exhibition holds two forces in tension: imperial authority and Niuean endurance. It acknowledges devotion and sacrifice without romanticising either.
Grounded in Niuean history yet resonant today, The Luku and the Lion asserts Pacific presence within a global conflict that reshaped even the smallest nations.