Alick Tipoti
Cultural Leader and Artist
"Without your language you become a foreigner, lost in another person’s culture."
Alick Tipoti 2019
Alick Tipoti is a renowned visual and performance artist, community leader, linguist and regional advocate from Badu in Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait). His elders named him Zugub, meaning Spiritual Ancestor, due to the spiritual encounters he experiences through his art practice.
Tipoti’s contemporary artistic techniques are informed by spiritual patterns revealed to him by his Ancestors. These are left through oral histories, held within language and the environment and through observing cultural artefacts held in collecting institutions. His works use complex background designs, disguised among ritual objects, and land and sea creatures. Using these representations, Tipoti reclaims the cultural history of his people and asserts their deep links to their marine environment.
His approach to creating new work is based on not exploiting cultural information, as certain information remains sacred only to Zenadth Kes people. As a custodian and cultural ambassador, his innate desire to keep his cultural practices alive is at the heart of all his work.
"My art is based on legends of the Torres Strait where I depict my interpretations of the land, sea, sky and the many different living creatures and spirits that exist here. I use my art as an educational tool, teaching people about important cultural events, practices and beliefs from the past."
Alick Tipoti, Badu Island Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait Island) 2020
Zenadth Kes – In 1989 a group of Elders renamed the region, their aim being to revitalise, preserve and maintain culture and language. Zenadth Kes is an acronym, devised by mapping the direction of the body of water between Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Zenadth Kes – also known as the Torres Strait Islands – is part of the Australian state of Queensland. There are more than 274 islands, with 18 inhabited islands and two communities located on Cape York Peninsula. More than 8,000 years ago, world sea levels were about 100 metres lower than today. A land bridge formed along Zenadth Kes, allowing people to easily walk between Cape York Peninsula and southern Papua New Guinea. Evidence of human settlement in the region dates back some 2,500 years.