My island home

Mon 30 Jun 2025

Segar Passi grew up on the remote eastern Torres Strait islands of Waier and Dauar. The Murray Island group comprises of three volcanic islands (Waier, Dauar and Mer) at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.

As a sea hunter, Passi knows the rhythm of the seasons, the ebb and flow of tides, currents, rips and whirlpools, and their symbiotic relationships with celestial bodies. He paints these systems, and the tropical weather patterns so familiar to him, to ensure his people's safety at sea.

The Murray Island group of islands (Mer looking toward Waier & Dauar)

In Waier; Dauar 2015 2014–15 Passi details the physical features of his islands and surrounding sea and sky. He shows the evolution of one island becoming two, split through volcanic action (illustrated here by lava rocks tumbling into the sea), and speaks of a little-known phenomenon in which white smoke emanates from Dauar when it rains.

Waier; Dauar 2015 2014–15

Passi’s aerial perspective of the rocky isles originated from a rare view he experienced in 1969 — at that time when all travel to the islands was by boat — when flying in a small plane on his way to Port Moresby. These imposing landforms are visible to Passi from where he now lives on Mer (Murray Island), and he explores his deep connection to them in his work.

Waier 2015

Dauar 2014–15