Peta Mabo-Duncan is an emerging, Torres Strait Islander lens-based artist whose work is both an exploration of her identity and a love letter to her culture and community. Through her work, Peta explores familial relationships, cultural practices and the juxtapositions of embedding cultural knowledge in different contemporary photographic mediums and approaches.

"A drum beat carries over the waters. Our spirituality is the sea.

My work is rooted in the stories, sounds, and spirits of Country. BAKIAMU — is my first video work that speaks to our connection to place and the urgent, disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on the Torres Strait Islands. This work also explores facets of cultural identity and resilience through a contemporary lens. 

BAKIAMU (meaning “gone”) is a visual and sonic offering to Country. It is both a lament and a call to action — documenting not only the beauty of our homelands, but also its fragility and how attuned we are to its balance. Through the voices of village knowledge holders, they speak about how our being is entwined with the land, winds and sea.

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and king tides are not distant projections for us; they are lived realities, already reshaping our landscapes and threatening sacred sites, burial grounds, and community life.

Through this work, I explore how ancestral knowledge, and contemporary storytelling can converge to bear witness. BAKIAMU is not just a climate story — it is a cultural one. It foregrounds Torres Strait Islander voices and presence in a global conversation that often overlooks us. It is a reminder that climate justice must include Indigenous sovereignty, and that our stories, deeply embedded in land and sea, hold wisdom for survival and regeneration.

As with all my work, BAKIAMU is a love letter to my people — a visual assertion that we are still here, still watching the tides, and still holding on to what matters."

- Peta Mabo-Duncan

Peta recently showcased at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in 2025 and at the Melbourne Town Hall as part of the Yirramboi Festival 2025. The NAIDOC Week show will mark Peta's debut exhibition in a commercial gallery.