Art In Melanessia-sample.pdf

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Other works by the same author:

A Black and White Family Album: Mother and Daughter Memoirsof Papua New Guinea 1950s-1970s

Contemporary Art in Papua New Guinea

Brtara: Contemporary Pacific Art


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Art and Life in Melanesia

By

Susan Cochrane


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Art and Life in Melanesia, by Susan Cochrane

This book first published 2007. The present binding first published 2012.

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright 2012 by Susan Cochrane

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-4067-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4067-5


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This book is dedicated to

all the artists and friends of artists

who collaborated wholeheartedly with the project.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements p ix

Chapter 1 Introduction by Michael Mel p 1

Chapter 2 art & life + Melanesia p 10Chapter 3 art & life + kastom p 19

Chapter 4 art & life + exchanges p 34

Chapter 5 art & life + indigenisation p 52

Chapter 6 art & life + christianity p 63

Chapter 7 art & life + festival p 76

Chapter 8 art & life + market p 88

Chapter 9 art & life + copyright p 103

Chapter 10 art & life + urban clan p 118

Chapter 11 art & life + open learning p 133

Chapter 12 art & life + cultural politics p 153

Chapter 13 art & life + urban culture p 165

Chapter 14 art & life + diasporas p 189

Captions for centrefold colour images Fig. 1-24 p 208

Glossary p 212

Works Cited p 216

Index p 226

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the interest and cooperation

of many artists, scholars, curators and friends and I express my deep gratitude

for all the contributions they have made to this book. In particular, I wish tothank Dr Michael Mel for his participation in this project by contributing the

Introduction and for his many constructive comments. I acknowledge the

continued support and collaboration of Papua New Guineas contemporary

artists over the past two decades with projects to present and promote their art,and I pay my respects to Jakupa Ako and Mathias Kauage OBE, who have

passed away. Special thanks to Emmanuel Kasarherou, Director of the TjibaouCultural Centre, and the DAPEX team for assistance with photographs of

artworks from their unparalleled collection. Ralph Regenvanu, Director of the

Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta, has given support and interest to this project. Contactwith Torres Strait Islander artists and art students was assisted by Brian

Robinson, Curator of the Cairns Regional Gallery, Anna Eglitis and Theo

Tremblay of the Aboriginal and Islander Art School at the far North Queensland

College of Technical and Further Education. In the Solomon Islands, LawrenceFoanaota, Director of the National Museum has always been most helpful, as

has Epeli Hauofa, Director of the Centre for Oceanic Arts and Culture at the

University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

Many artists, friends and colleagues have readily lent photographs andprovided information about artists in remote areas. Thank you Alfred and Mary-

Lou Uechtritz, Albert Speer, Helen Dennett, Jutta Malnic, Carl Warner, Robert

McLennan and Jacquelyn Lewis-Harris for assistance with images of artists inPapua New Guinea; to Michael Cookson, Robyn Roper, Greg Poulson and

Karen Jacobs for hard-to-get information and images of art and artists in West

Papua; thanks also to Moses and Marilyn Havini for Bougainville, Clive Mooreand Lawrence Foanaota for the Solomon Islands.

I have included a number of images taken by my parents, Percy and Renata

Cochrane, in the 1950s and 60s, to add some depth of time. Their archive, theCochrane Papua New Guinea Collection, which includes hundreds of images, is

held at the Michael Birt Library, University of Wollongong, and I thank the

archivist, Susan Jones, for her assistance in retrieving them. Special thanks tomy daughter, Renata Bliss, for the book design.

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My appreciation goes to the many artists who provided images of their own

artworks and permission to reproduce them. In a few cases, despite repeated

efforts, I have been unable to make contact with artists due to remoteness andlack of communication facilities; many villages in Melanesia have no phone,mail service or Internet facilities. In such cases, I rely on permission given

orally at the time the images were taken.

It should be noted that the selection of images in this book do not necessarilyrepresent the greatest recent and contemporary art of Melanesia that would

require a huge team and unlimited funding to cover all individual artists,

communities, regions and events. Rather, the images are representative ofreadily accessible and visible Melanesian art and artists and the selection

supports the themes of the chapters, which explore a number of aspects of

contemporary art and life in Melanesia. The most extraordinary aestheticproductions in Melanesian cultures are often related to ritual and ceremony and

may be rarely witnessed by persons outside their community.

This book was compiled while I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at theUniversity of Queensland.

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

byMichaelMel

Michael and Anna Mel

performPles Namel

Asia Pacic Triennial 1996, Queensland Art Gallery

Michael is acting as a tour guide, inviting spectators to

apply body decoration and paint to Annas body


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Melanesia is a region of hundreds of islands.Before the term Melanesia was conceived, the region was inhabited

by unique cultural groups each with its own language, history,

knowledge and art practices who lived and made their homes on

these islands. Within those cultures there have always been many

artists men and women. Distinctive designs, patterns, songs,

dances and stories were created and maintained by the artists as part

of elaborate ceremonies and rituals. Some of these processes were

ways of telling stories to entertain and to record history. There were

others that were, for the artists, ways of leaving indelible footprints

or marks beyond their lifetime. Sometimes stories emerged aboutthe markings; the stories grew to become legends, and some of

these transpired into myths. Inspired by their own experiences and

visions and by their physical, social and spiritual environment, the

artists provided conduits to bring people together in times of joy

and happiness and also during times of loss and grief. Additionally,

the artists, through their various forms and processes, held people

together and gave them a sense of belonging, cultural continuity and

survival. Even more fascinating was the way in which the artists and

their craft made manifest the dreams and visions belonging to the

members of the different cultural groups. Such roles placed the artists

and their art as chief creators of their cultures and as harbingers of

change in society.

One of the aims of this book is to provide brief descriptions of

the ways in which Melanesian artists have reacted and responded

to the challenges posed by change and, at the same time, how they

have embedded their visions in the history and heritage of their

respective countries. What represents Melanesian art today, giventhat there is a multiplicity of traditions in the region? Is there such

a thing as modern Melanesian art? Who are the artists? What might

be the subject matter for their art? Melanesian states carry with them

their own history and colonial experiences, and, as they continue

to etch out a place in the world, they experience direct and indirect

interactions with other cultures and modern economies. These

inuences must mean that changes are taken on by Melanesian artists

in their artistic practices from the past and into the present. What are

the extent of these changes and developments in artistic practice?This book is timely in its exploration of Melanesian artists and their

voices in their communities. Among other things, it provides an



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important juncture for many of us in Melanesia and those beyond

with an interest in the region to take stock of what has happened

to Melanesian art. We can also ask ourselves what might be ahead.

How do we chart the waters for the future? This book can help us

respond to some of these questions and, more particularly, to see how

the artists are responding and charting their courses. Our responsesto these questions and the kinds of journeys we might map in terms

of the Melanesian cultural landscape are crucial and I have taken the

liberty in this foreword to raise a number issues and ideas that might

contribute to this process.

Melanesian art past present future

In examining and discussing Melanesian art traditional or

contemporary there are a couple of key questions that need to

be brought to the foreground early. What kind of art might be called

traditional art? And, what is contemporary art in Melanesia? These two

categories represent ostensibly points of departure from the old, and

the start of the new, and have often been used as convenient means to

categorise art. Contrary to this way of situating art activities in terms

of the past and the present, as two separate and distinct categories,

art in Melanesia today builds on the same principles of making art in

the past. What is probably most conspicuous about art in Melanesiatoday, in relation to the past, is the fact that contemporary art uses a

wide range of media and also draws on a range of ideas and issues.

Melanesian artists are part of a complex web of inuences and

histories, which often places them in situations of conict and

confrontation. Elsewhere I referred to this as a productive tension, a

tension related to nding a space for meaning-making:

The voices of [Melanesian artists] carry a tension. This tension

is located within the sense of ambiguity between tradition andchange, between old and new and past and present. These tensions

provide a vibrant and enigmatic cultural location and the artists as

individuals put their case their vision.1

Often artists are inuenced by the various encounters and

relationships that have had some impact on their lives. These

encounters include local cultural language and knowledge, various

forms of schooling, Christian inuences, the media, and political

and cultural changes. Artists in Melanesia have composite identities;they are simultaneously members of families, clans and citizens of

a nation, as well as artists, teachers and parents. They have had to

Introduction


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realise their place and their responsibilities

in all of these contexts. It is inevitable that

this complex personal baggage requires

artists to juggle and juxtapose and negotiate.

The diversity of subjective positions,

social experiences and cultural identitiesthat inuence Melanesian artists puts into

contention any linear or singular perspective

of Melanesian art as something that is simply

traditional or contemporary.

Stereotypes of Melanesia

Stereotypical images of endless sun-

bleached beaches, sky-blue waters, coconut

palms and natives wearing leis have

been perpetuated to represent Melanesia.

Similarly, art from Melanesia has been

categorised as carvings, totem poles, tapa-

cloth prints, body decorations such as tattoo

and elaborate costumes. The booty gathered

from Melanesians during colonisation

was sent home to the colonisers publicinstitutions. Now located in institutions for

study and exhibition, these construct and

inform images of a Melanesia located in a

time capsule: as it was then, as it is now and

as it shall be unchanging. Paraphrasing

Clifford and Marcus, Melanesian artists and their art are not objects

to be described, neither are they a unied corpus of symbols and

meanings that can be denitively interpreted.2

The West has long had a fascination with Melanesia and itsindigenous people by the West, I mean dominant powers that set

up specic political and cultural practices that regulated and governed

particular representations of Melanesia. And, by indigenous people,

I mean various cultural groups with different political and cultural

practices who offered resistance to these dominant powers. The

Wests fascination and infatuation with other cultures is identied in

its descriptive language of the exotic, the primitive, the colonised

and the other; convenient modes of deliberating on Melanesia.

Identied as opposite to and elsewhere from the West, Melanesianart has been positioned at the margins, categorised and regulated

N. Moripua (Solomon Islands)Malaita Panpipes, 1998

Acrylic on canvas

Courtesy Solomon Islands Art Gallery

Photograph Susan Cochrane



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and normalised as such. Melanesian art

and artists are seen as incapable of change,

immune to external inuences and, indeed,

removed from history. Bernard Narakobis

comment is an apt one on this issue:

Our contemporary artists will pass into

history as our artists, our visionaries, our

prophets in our times. Our art should be

seen and enjoyed and our artists appreciated

for what they are and not for what or whom

they resemble. 3

The framing of a culture and its

production and maintenance servesspecic discourses and consequently

supports a process of political and cultural

domination.

Melanesia and voices of difference

Social upheaval and shifting cultural

road maps have led to Melanesian cultures

being characterised as impulsive andunpredictable in changing circumstances.

The situation is made even more precarious with the emergence of

a global economy and the interconnections of the World Wide Web,

which have created a world that is virtually miniaturised. Inuences,

direct and indirect, that are being brought about by technological

innovations via television, CD-ROMs, DVDs, virtual-reality

games, advertising and other multimedia and mass-media related

practices are dazzling and beguiling, especially for many

individuals and communities in Melanesia that might be innocent

in their naivety. Technological innovations make spoken and written

forms of communication appear unwieldy and archaic; a new kind

of literacy is needed in order to read, better organise and manage

the meanings and inuences brought by the new technologies. The

lack of such literacy risks compounding the maintenance of power

and Western ideology within the region as well as the dominance

of Western cultural tendencies. In the struggle for their political

independence, Melanesian leaders, artists and cultural practitionersfound the voices of race and cultural difference as the basis for

resistance and challenge against the dominance of colonisation.

Nanias Maira (Sepik, PNG)

Angela, ND

Acrylic on paper

Private collectionPhotograph courtesy Helen Dennett

Introduction


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Melanesia became a unifying frame of reference, maintaining

a kind of them and us approach a within here and an out

there. Perspectives about dominance and subjugation have been

conveniently and consistently based on either/or positions of black

and white. But the issues now facing Melanesian peoples are more

complex than race relationships and struggles between dominant andmarginalised cultures. Race relationships, issues of being black and

arguments of exclusivity cannot be contained or sustained.

Social realities within Melanesian societies are now more

problematic than the conventionally truncated voices of tribalism

and cultural entities. For instance, references are often made to the

comforts of village life, to villages idealised as serene locations

away from the hasty race of town life. But these imaginings of an

elsewhere serve as rhetoric to gloss over the real images of ghettos,

fringe-dwellers and the politically and economically marginalised.

In Melanesian countries there are looming threats of cultural and

tribal disintegration. State machineries advocate greater conformity

largely for the purpose of wealth generation and nation-building.

Issues of cultural difference, race, resistance and struggle have

more to do with the continuing tensions posed in the encounters of

everyday life.

I would suggest

that today there isa need to move the

frames of reference.

Melanesian artists

are free from the

containment of

Western interpretat-

ions based on their

supposed ageless

past. Melanesianartists have a

responsibility to

reect and challenge

the inequities that

are emerging in

modern Melanesia.

M e l a n e s i a n

artists are part of

complex webs ofrelationships from

Gickmai Kundun (Port Moresby PNG)

Hardships of Women, 1999

Charcoal and oilstick on paper

Private collection




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within their local contexts and beyond. Any relationship is an

expression of position and power and therefore a motile political and

cultural enterprise. This view of the Melanesian artist begins to place

more emphasis on individual artists and it is, indeed,

individual [artists] who, in the routine course of their everyday lives,are constantly involved in understanding themselves and others,

producing meaningful actions and expressions and interpreting the

meaningful actions and expressions by others.4

Any discussion about Melanesian art should be about issues

relating to history, heritage, class, cultural identity, ethnicity, gender

and even sexuality and not built entirely around issues of being black

or white and the loss of tradition in the face of modernisation. There

is the need for further reection and critique of the old discourses.

Our artists, our visionaries, our prophets in our times

Melanesian cultures that were once relatively isolated and self-

contained now face ever-increasing contacts from within Melanesia

and beyond. It is inevitable that people will learn much more

about themselves and others and will be able to better understand

their own culture in terms of its limitations and its possibilities;

this can lead to change or to retention of their own culture. One

popular concept about Melanesian art was that dominant Western

inuences led to the decline and eradication of indigenous culture.

Consequently, Melanesian artists have prided themselves on their

culture and traditions that retain unique and self-contained qualities.

Cultural self-consciousness has been important in the face of the

bombardment of ideas and inuences from the outside. However,

an overemphasis on the local can lead to bigotry and ethnocentrism

a belief that ones own culture is more important than others fromwithin Melanesia and beyond.

Melanesians are children of their history. To paraphrase Giroux,

being a meaningful Melanesian artist is a form of cultural production

understood as an ideological process through which we experience

ourselves, as well as our relations to others and the world, within

a complex and often contradictory system of representations and

images.5

Melanesian artists have a role to play where they can bring about

in other Melanesians an appreciation of a deep sense of connectionwith and loyalty to their own places and cultures. They can also

enable Melanesians and others to enter into a better understanding

Introduction


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and appreciation of other cultures. There

is little doubt that this is risky business. As

Bernice Murphy advocated in the Noumea

Biennale:

[Melanesian artists need] to be stimulating,imaginative, risk-taking. It may arouse social

controversy on occasions, and if so, they

should address this with both courage and

responsibility [Their art] must embrace

the fullness and ambiguity of evolving, often

paradoxical and multiple worlds from which

artists and new art works emerge.6

Institutions and individuals in Melanesiamust play an important role in identifying

and supporting new visions that Melanesian

artists bring forth. Articulating and advocating

new visions and directions for Melanesian

artists will not be easy. Often new ideas are

hard to sustain because institutions tend to

support conventional knowledge what is

known and familiar. In order to enunciate Melanesian voices, it is

necessary to begin to look at new and different directions that mighthelp to chart a course for Melanesians to see the world as individuals

and as members of communities. This is especially critical in acts

of self-consciousness, in which the selection and presentation of art

activities from Melanesia can be a major window into the soul and

spirit of being diverse Islanders bound by a geographic location.78

Michael A. Mel (PhD)

University of Goroka,

Papua New Guinea

Thank you to two colleagues, Tambs Yamuna and Yonnel

Yosam, for their comments on a draft of this paper; however, any

faults within it are mine.

1Mel, M.A. 2000. Tensions and Visions in Papua New Guinea. The NoumeaBiennale of Contemporary Art. Noumea: ADCK. p17.2 Clifford, J & Marcus G.E. 1986. Writing Culture. London: The University

of California Press.

Kanak artist Yvette Bouquet

Photograph David Becker, courtesy ADCK



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3 Narakobi, B. 1990. Transformations in Art and Society. Cochrane, S. and

Stevenson, H. (eds.).Luk Luk Gen! (Look Again!): Contemporary Art from

Papua New Guinea. Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. pp 16-21.4 Thompson, J.B. 1990.Ideology and Modern Culture. California: Stanford

University Press. p. 215

Giroux, H. 1989. Schooling and Democracy. London:Routledge. p.166 Mel, M.A. 2004. Turn the World Upside Down. Paper presented at South

1: The Gathering. University of Melbourne. July 1-4, 2004. Online http://.

southproject.org/texts/mel.htm.7 Murphy, B. 2000. Comments at the Noumea Biennale of Contemporary

Art, 2000, and the Noumea Biennale Symposium. 2002. Pacic Cultures

on the Move A Report on the Symposium, Workshop and Meetings that

took place during the 8th Festival of Pacic Arts, New Caledonia 2000.

Committee for the Organisation of the Festival of Pacic Arts, Noumea.

pp.10-24.

Introduction


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George Sari (Goroka, PNG)

The Mens House, 2004

Acrylics on canvas

Private collection

Photograph Michael Mel

Artists statement: Whatever I paint are subjects of my

cultural heritage that I hope will be preserved for the future

CHAPTER 2

art and life

+Melanesia

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There is no recognised canon of recent and

contemporary Melanesian art, a culturally cohesive creativepractice reecting a common sense of identity, place and time, yet

there is a great diversity of artistic activities happening throughout

the region. Throughout Melanesia, art forms express characteristic

local cultures in village and urban settings; sometimes they are

created expressly for clan rituals or community celebrations and

ceremonies, sometimes they reach audiences far from the artists

home communities.

The word artis (artist) has gained currency in recent years and is

used widely in the lingua franca, Tok Pisin. In every country thereare many urbanised artis who earn their living from the relatively

new occupation of making and selling images and objects of a non-

traditional nature in the open market. Markets and festivals are

pragmatic and resourceful responses to the minimal facilities of small

island nations, whose artists have limited opportunities to reveal

their creative expression to audiences outside their community, or

to go on tour, or to exhibit their artworks. Living in small, remote

communities does not exclude the possibility for artists to reach the

world, if they desire to do so.

Locating Melanesia

Melanesia was not an indigenous word or concept. The word,

meaning black islands, was derived from Greek, and Melanesia was

initially conceptualised by the French navigator, Dumont dUrville,

as one of the three ethno-linguistic regions of the Pacic; the others

were named Polynesia (many islands) and Micronesia (tinyislands). But as the Papua New Guinean statesman and philosopher

Bernard Narokobi acknowledged, The events of the past, however

they began, have a profound impact on human development of the

future.1 In the late 1970s and 80s, Melanesian leaders recognised

commonalities between their countries and acknowledged that the

indigenous people of the region had a Melanesian identity as well

as their national and local ones; they developed a code of conduct,

the Melanesian Way, appropriate for contemporary indigenous

societies that had gained, or were gaining, their sovereignty andindependence.2 Women have also contributed to social issues and

governance at local, provincial and national levels.3 Having a11

Art and Life + Melanesia


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collective identity and unity assisted the leaders of emerging nations

in the international political arena.

Melanesia is recognised as a contiguous ethno-cultural and

geographic region, which includes the island of New Guinea, the

archipelagos of the Torres Strait, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu,

New Caledonia and to some extent Fiji, which borders on Polynesia.Politically, the countries of Melanesia are Papua New Guinea (an

independent state), West Papua (a province of Indonesia, previously

known as Irian Jaya), the Torres Strait Islands (part of Australia), the

Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji (independent states), and New

Caledonia, which remains tied to France although it gained greater

autonomy in 1998. In 2005, Bougainville gained a new status of

autonomy from Papua New Guinea.

There is a great diversity of physical environments within the

geographical region of Melanesia, as well as in the cultural, social,

economic and political circumstances of the people who inhabit it.

Melanesia is the most linguistically diverse region in the world:

more than 1,000 languages are spoken and there is, accordingly, a

wide diversity of cultural practices.

The Melanesian region is one of great distances, which can

be measured not only physically, but culturally and symbolically.

Throughout the region, people have different vantage points

indigenous and non-indigenous, past and present from which theyobserve, discuss and value their respective cultures. Considerable

conceptual distances often exist between indigenous and non-

indigenous cultures and their perceptions of culture and society.

Melanesian identity

Being Melanesian is a collective identity, not used within local

contexts. There are very few Islanders who identify themselves asMelanesian artists with elements of Melanesian-ness in their

work. These terms are most useful when an individual and their art

migrate out of their local context into the international realm, where

an artist might be the only representative from the region. At other

events, such as regional festivals, Melanesians, Polynesians and

Micronesians are clustered into cultural groupings. In their home

environment, many of todays artists are still absorbed in their local

contexts, the routines of village life, rituals that connect them to the

spiritual and physical worlds, negotiating complex relationships withkin and making connections in the wider world.

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Charley Weiss (New Caledonia)

Model of Kanak village, c. 1950Private collection


Any attempt to write about recent and contemporary Melanesian

art nds one caught in an undisciplined, cross-cultural eld. People

of all cultures express beliefs about themselves and their connections

with present and past generations. In Western culture, it is common

to record and document these beliefs as history, and reviewing

material culture and other forms of creative expression as arthistory. Epeli Hauofa, Director of the Centre for Oceanic Arts

and Culture at the University of the South Pacic in Fiji, suggested

that human story was a more appropriate term to encompass local

histories and genealogies as well as contact history with Western and

indigenous interpretations and representations of it.4

The Papua New Guinean historian John Waiko alleged that

Western methods of studying the human stories of Pacic peoples

imposed a reliance on European written sources as the basis of the

study. This excused the scholar from learning the language of the

people under consideration and perpetuated human stories being

written for historians and not for the people. Waiko explained

how the methodology of history writing might be at odds with

the perceptions of indigenous people. For example, his Binandere

culture traditionally explained its history orally and in display; it did

not separate the past and the present or religious, social, political and

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14



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economic themes, and used a thematic rather than a chronological

approach in its explanations.5

In many Melanesian languages, no single words exist for the

Western cultural concepts of history and art. Nevertheless, the

celebration of being, communication of identity, expression of

cultural knowledge and cohesion to the land were and still are sung,orated, performed, designed, sculpted and made into images. Myths,

legends, poetry, songs and incantations as well as objects and images

narrate cultural values, epics, spiritual beliefs, social customs and

the peoples covenant with the land. Waiko described the mourning

customs of Binandere people as their crying and this act transferred

the personality of the deceased into songs or rhythms that were

incorporated into the clans repertoire; rhythms were created for

drum and dance and melodies for solo voice to keep the dead within

the living memory of their kin. Another way of transforming history

into songs and songs into history was crying for a lost stone club,

which then became the story of how it was made, where it came

from, how it was exchanged and the battles and hunting expeditions

of which it was a part.6

Contesting Western concepts of art and history with indigenous

ones is a recurring theme in the work of scholar and performance

artist Michael Mel. Using Tok Pisin, Mel identied three categories

kastom, taim bilong masta and yumi iet to lead Melanesianpeople towards a sense of shared culture. He noted that for many

Melanesians introduced to this concept, one of the most popular

categories has been the notion of kastom orpasin bilong ples.

This refers in many ways to a sense of shared culture. The second

category, taim bilong masta, relates to the colonial experiences of

being treated differently by the colonial masters because we were

different in language, behaviour, skin colour and custom. Yumi ietis

the nal dimension; in Mels words, The new Pacic is an admixture

of conuences Western inuences combined with those of ourown hamlets and villages produces [sic] a cornucopia that articulates

Pacic differences within the Pacic and without.7

Art and artists in Melanesia

Describing all current forms of artistic production as contemporary

previous page

Tjibaou Cultural Centre (New Caledonia)

Renzo Pianos contemporary architecture salutes the traditional form of Kanak chiefs housesForeground sculptures by Andre Passa


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and the makers as contemporary artists does not match the reality of

many Melanesian art producers, simply because these categories do

not mean anything to them like the skilled carvers in the Solomon

Islands who make non-traditional pieces and sell them to artefact

shops in Honiara.8 As well as image- and object-makers, there are

singers and songwriters, like the Kanake bands in New Caledonia,who generate popular culture in Melanesian countries. They are the

sensors of public opinion and capture its moods; their songs and

images frequently refer to political and social issues affecting their

own and other black societies. Syncretic forms of popular culture are

not inuenced justby Western culture: Bob Marley is a prophet of

the Pacic; Kanake music has some roots in reggae; Rasta colours

and dreadlocks are prolic throughout Melanesia.

Certain artists in Melanesia condently distinguish themselves as

contemporary artists, individuals whose original style and practice

accords with current international concepts of contemporary art and

who participate in major international arts events. The Queensland

Art Gallerys Asia Pacic Triennialsof 1993, 1996 and 1999,9 the

Noumea Biennale of Contemporary Art in 1996, 1998, 2000 and

2002, and one-off major events such as the Sydney Olympics Arts

Festival, have challenged contemporary artists from Melanesia to

engage with others on the world stage. Unfortunately, due to the

lack of cultural funding, support agencies, galleries and promotersin their countries, leading Melanesian artists know that as well as

making art their activities must encompass management, advocacy

and marketing. Without economic security, todays Melanesian

artists have to be enterprising in order to survive.

Melanesian art in Western culture

There is a canon of Oceanic art in European and American

museums and private collections. Previously designated primitiveart, this includes many highly regarded objects from Melanesian

cultures that have features typical of their region of origin

and demonstrate superior craftsmanship, formal and aesthetic

qualities. Preferably old and rare, they suit the Eurocentric notion

of ethnographic authenticity, which has been conrmed by the art

market, connoisseurs and curators and circulated within this realm of

Western culture. The most famous pieces in the Oceanic art category

are old objects classied as art because of their connections with

individuals and movements of modern European art. In art museums,iconic Oceanic art objects are exhibited for their formal and aesthetic

qualities; in most ethnographic museums, they are set in social and16



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cultural contexts.10

In comparison with the status of older masterpieces of Oceanic art

in museum collections,

contemporary art from

Melanesia has made

little headway in theinternational art world,

especially in Europe and

America. Eva Raabe,

Curator of Oceania

at the Museum fur

Volkerkunde, Frankfurt-

am-Main, commented

that art museums in

Europe considered

contemporary art naive

or folk art and of little

consequence:

Contemporary paintings without obvious traits of Pacic

traditions are not accepted by the public as authentic Pacic

art works but as soon as they incorporate an ethnographic

element they are not regarded as being contemporary

or modern. In the rst case the art work is not seen asgenuine and therefore as not good enough to be included

in any art show, in the second case the work is classied

as ethnographic or folk art and is therefore excluded from

modern art exhibitions.11

The superimposition of Western tastes and values that limits the

selection, exhibition and critique of the artistic products of Melanesian

people is unsustainable and should be contested. This attitude is not

informed by what Melanesian artists consider important and deniesthe ability of artists to create new works, in whatever form they wish,

that reect their spirit and their times and which are valued in their

local cultural context.

This book investigates art and life in Melanesia through a series

of linked essays on different themes. It explores different settings

in which art-making is taking place: in villages, in urban centres

and in international arts events. The scope of this book is wide in

its coverage of current arts practice and the circumstances in which

todays Melanesian artists operate, but it is also limited because thelarge range of topics restricts the space devoted to each of them. While

from left to right:

Eric Natuoivi, Daniel Waswas, Paula Boi, Yvette Bouquet

Artists at a workshop at Tjibaou Cultural Centre 1998

Photograph Michel Bonnes

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I have included material from all the countries of Melanesia, PNG

dominates because of the sheer size of its population (approaching ve

million) and the diversity of its cultures. Apart from the Indonesian

province of West Papua, each of PNGs provinces is larger than any

Melanesian nation. For this reason, the themes that include material

from PNG concentrate on one of the regional cultures; for example,the Trobriand Islands in Chapter 3.

In communities throughout Melanesia, peoples creativity

is constantly inventing and reinterpreting all forms of cultural

expression. There are many points of view expressed and stories

told in the past 50 years or so, but the accentuation is on the vision

and voice of the artists. Each artwork in this book represents a

point of interaction, a pivot for cross-cultural representation and

interpretation. It is intended to encourage dialogue and interaction

between artists and audiences for their art. It would be impossible for

anyone to have a full understanding of cultures other than their own,

but it is possible for a non-indigenous person such as myself to learn

considerably from encounters and exchanges with people who wish

to share the messages of their cultural knowledge and art practice.

1 Narokobi, 1983, Life and Leadership in Melanesia, p. 20.2 Ibid.3 For Vanuatu, see Grace Molissa and Elsie Huffer, 1999, Governance inVanuatu: In Search of the Nakamal Way. For Papua New Guinea, Carol

Kidu, 2000,A Remarkable Journey. The poet Dw Gorod also serves as

Minister for Culture in New Caledonia. Three women have senior positions

in the rst government of the Autonomous Province of Bougainville, elected

in June 2005.4 Hauofa, keynote address at South 1: The Gathering, University of

Melbourne, October 2003.5 Waiko, conference paper, Pacic History Association Conference,

University of the South Pacic, July 1985.6 Ibid.7 Mel, 2002, Ples bilong mi: Interfacing Global and Indigenous Knowledge

in Mapping out a Pacic Vision at Home and Abroad, p. 42.8 As discussed in Chapter 9.9 No Melanesian artists were included in the 2002 Asia Pacic Triennial.10 Discussing African masterpieces in Musee de lHomme in Paris, Vogel

and NDiyae commented that the founders of this museum were amateurs of

art and, although this was a pre-eminent ethnographic museum, they never

treated the objects as ethnograpic specimens; the museum was secretly an

art museum.11 Raabe, 1999, Modernism or Folk Art? The Reception of Pacic Art in

Europe, p. 21.

18



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CHAPTER 3

art & life

+kastom

Martin Morububuna (Trobriand Islands, PNG)

Tabuya,1990

PastelonpaperPrivatecollection.

PhotographHughStevenson.

19


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Indigenous societies in Melanesia hadlong-established social hierarchies, systems of belief and ritual

practices,patternsof tradeand ceremonialexchange in taim bipo

(pasttime),manyofwhichpersisttothisday.TheMelanesianterm

kastom refers to indigenous power relations, customs and ways,

andencompasseswhatWesternculturecallstradition.Kastomis

akeysourceofidentityandmeaningandisimportantinshaping

developmentandsocialchangeinMelanesiansocieties.ItmightbeusedasanoppositionalconcepttoWesterncultureortoIndonesian

culture or to Christianity, but it has also proved to be exible and

opentonewideas,whichmightsuitcommunitydevelopment.1

For Torres Strait Islanders, ailan kastom (Island custom) is

used to describe the strong sense of culture shared by Islanders.

TheCommonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander(ATSIC)

Act 1989 denes it as the body of customs, traditions, observances

and beliefs of some or all of theTorresStrait Islanders living in

the TorresStrait area, and includes any such customs, traditions,

observancesandbeliefsrelatingtoparticularpersons,areas,objects

or relationships.2TorresStrait commentatorMaryBanicriticised

this legal denition as awed, because it did not encompass the

signicant Islander population living on the mainland of Australia,

manyofwhomaredeeplyinvolvedinculturalactivities.

Kastom bilong ples (local custom)

TheTokPisinphrasekastom bilong ples signies attachment to a

particulargroupwhoseculturalpracticesareboundtotheirownlaws,

societyandenvironment.Itwasandstillisoftenunderstressfrom

governments,foreigncorporations,churchesandaidorganisations

withtheirgoalsofdevelopment.

The loss or disruption of kastom might be keenly felt, as the

anthropologistJaapTimmerdescribesoftheImyanpeopleofWest

Papua:

LossofknowledgehasputImyansocietyinthepredicament

l f l h l f k l d i b li d h


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