In Mother Tongue, Jasmine Togo-Brisby delves into her Australian South Sea Islander identity through a poignant visit to the Don Juan site in Deborah Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand. Rowing offshore with her mother, who hums an ambiguous song, she reflects on their loss of a mother tongue and cultural rupture. In her Bones and Bellies, the series portrays three generations of South Sea Islanders —herself, her mother, and her daughter— through large-scale lightboxes, bridging and depicting past and present with ancestral narratives in mud and salt. The Don Juan, arriving in Queensland in 1863, transported 67 Ni Vanuatu people to start Australia's first cotton plantation, initiating widespread “blackbirding”—a term for the Pacific slave trade. For South Sea Islanders, this vessel symbolizes ancestral endurance, while the ocean represents both identity and the rupture of forced migration. Togo-Brisby’s work authentically presents these complex relationships without reclaiming or decolonizing but reveals their truth with sincerity. A graduate of Queensland College of Art and Massey University (BFA, MFA), she uses lens-based media, installation, and sculpture. Recent exhibitions include Seeing in the Dark: Busan Biennial (2024), sis: Pacific Art 1980-2023 (Gallery of Modern Art, 2024) and Inner Sanctum: 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2024).