Takai - First Project for A portrait of Niue

Niue. Have you been? It's a beautiful, rugged, raised coral atoll in the South pacific.

We love Niue - Maka was born there. Alexa once lived there.

Many things make Niue a special place - the crystal clear water; the amazing caves and rock formations; but mostly, it's the people. Everyone's got a friendly smile and a wave. It's a welcoming, inclusive community and it's super chilled out.

Only about 1200 people live in Niue, and in 2002 Swedish printing house The Bold Group photographed them all (well, most of them)! The publication they produced - 'The Millennium Project' is like a little snapshot of who was in Niue at the time. There have been a few changes in Niue since 2002: There has been a category 5 cyclone; a long clean up and rebuild and lots of people have come and gone - it's time to take another 'snapshot'.

In November this year (exactly 12 years since The Bold Group were there) Alexa Shaw: Photographer. And Maka Makatoa: Illustrator/animator will go to Niue to collect images for their updated version of 'The Millennium Project' : 'Takai - A Portrait of Niue'. Alexa will photograph all the people in Niue. Maka will draw portraits of all the school-aged children - Phew! It's going to be a busy two weeks!

'Takai - A Portrait of Niue' will be presented to the people of Niue as a printed magazine and exhibition during the 2015 Arts and Culture Festival. The Niue Arts and Culture Festival is held every two years to celebrate, showcase, share and preserve the islands unique culture, heritage and arts.

We have some great support from official type people, like the Niue High Commissioner; Mark and Ahi Cross - a pair of pretty amazing artists; The Niue Arts and Culture Festival committee; And we're hoping that Creative NZ will be helping us out too.

We have a crack team of helpers in Niue to organize our antics and make sure we get all our pictures.

Artists participating at the Arts and Culture festival are self-funded. So it's up to us to get ourselves to Niue to collect our images, collate and print them, and get back for the festival next year!

We're doing a two part funding campaign with boosted. At the moment, our focus is getting to Niue to collect our images in November: Flights, accommodation, transport, food. We are excited to welcome supporters to our journey - Takai. And look forward to sharing our adventures with you all!

Alexa Shaw's photographs can be seen on Flickr.