Hear Our Voices - Visual Album

This visual album is a series of 10-13 songs and videos, largely filmed in Aotearoa and partly in Vanuatu with the overall length being approx. 30-40min visual album. It pulls from the inspiration of The Never-Ending Story movie and the feeling of observing the journey of a young girl, in a far away world of fantasy, longing for help from you, the listener and watcher, to join and help her stand up for the future of her community. Much like the world we live in today, everything can feel like it is moving away and against us, but this visual album is a representation of collective activism from across the Pacific, the art and the power we hold when we get to tell our stories authentically.

Halo Olegta! My name is Rosalie Norton, an Island Pop artist known as Lehali. I am a 20 year old Kirikiriroa born and raised Māori and Pacific Islander, my nana coming from Ureparapara in the beautiful islands of Vanuatu and born in a small village called Lehali, which is the meaning behind my artist name as well as my music and creative self. 

Receiving donations will not only immensely support the creation of meaningful visual art but also support the importance of indigenizing our spaces through storytelling. Funding would make filming, creating and paying some of the production team and make editing this altogether possible.

Your support and the funds donated to this project will be allocated towards:

• Venue/location hire
• Hireage of production equipment
• Hireage of set props
• Paying a filming crew
• Paying video editor/s
  Costume
• Cast payment
• Use of a PR or marketing

In this incarnation of Lehali, she is visually expressed in an indigenous form of the Childlike Empress, inspired by the movie, The Never-Ending Story, and how she watches as "the nothing" strips away her land, culture and peoples. This album is a collection of stories, journeys and visions and each song written through the lens of a kōtiro from the past, present and future, who are still longing for freedom, liberation and their voices to be heard.

I am making a visual album because it will add that extra layer to each song's meaning, and will help to emphasise the lasting impact that the message of decolonising our mindset and encouraging cultural revitalization can bring. Making visualisers for these songs will also help other rangatahi see themselves in the stories, and hopefully to inspire them to take positive action in their lives and communities, however that may look like for them.

These songs highlight more stories than just me and my own creativity, so through this project it will create more opportunities for other creatives to get involved and be representatives for their own voices and communities. This visual album will be a way to inspire creativity, cultural reconnection and exploration. I hope it creates a space of reflection to all people, raising awareness to issues like industrialism, climate change, cultural inequalities, and I hope this a space to create and activate expression, art and change.