Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Melanesian artists have a role to play where they can bring about
in other Melanesians an appreciation of a deep sense of connection
with and loyalty to their own places and cultures. They can also
enable Melanesians and others to enter into a better understanding
7
Introduction
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 Melanesia
must 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 might
help 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.
1
Mel, M.A. 2000. Tensions and Visions in Papua New Guinea. The Noumea
Biennale 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
8
Art and Life in Melanesia
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. 21
5
Giroux, H. 1989. Schooling and Democracy. London:Routledge. p.16
6
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. Pacifc Cultures
on the Move A Report on the Symposium, Workshop and Meetings that
took place during the 8
th
Festival of Pacifc Arts, New Caledonia 2000.
Committee for the Organisation of the Festival of Pacifc Arts, Noumea.
pp.10-24.
9
Introduction
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
10
There is no recognised canon of recent and
contemporary Melanesian art, a culturally cohesive creative
practice refecting 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 there
are 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 Pacifc; the others
were named Polynesia (many islands) and Micronesia (tiny
islands). 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 and
independence.
2
Women have also contributed to social issues and
governance at local, provincial and national levels.
3
Having a
11
Art and Life + Melanesia
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 they
observe, 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 as
Melanesian 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 with
kin and making connections in the wider world.
12
Art and Life in Melanesia
Charley Weiss (New Caledonia)
Model of Kanak village, c. 1950
Private collection
Photograph Susan Cochrane
Any attempt to write about recent and contemporary Melanesian
art fnds one caught in an undisciplined, cross-cultural feld. 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 art
history. Epeli Hauofa, Director of the Centre for Oceanic Arts
and Culture at the University of the South Pacifc 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 Pacifc 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
13
Art and Life + Melanesia
14
Art and Life in Melanesia
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 identifed three categories
kastom, taim bilong masta and yumi iet to lead Melanesian
people 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 or pasin 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 iet is
the fnal dimension; in Mels words, The new Pacifc is an admixture
of confuences Western infuences combined with those of our
own hamlets and villages produces [sic] a cornucopia that articulates
Pacifc differences within the Pacifc 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 houses
Foreground sculptures by Andre Passa
Photograph Susan Cochrane
15
Art and Life + Melanesia
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 infuenced just by Western culture: Bob Marley is a prophet of
the Pacifc; Kanake music has some roots in reggae; Rasta colours
and dreadlocks are prolifc throughout Melanesia.
Certain artists in Melanesia confdently 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 Pacifc Triennials of 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 promoters
in 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 primitive
art, 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 confrmed 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 classifed 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 and
16
Art and Life in Melanesia
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 the
international 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 Pacifc
traditions are not accepted by the public as authentic Pacifc
art works but as soon as they incorporate an ethnographic
element they are not regarded as being contemporary
or modern. In the frst case the art work is not seen as
genuine and therefore as not good enough to be included
in any art show, in the second case the work is classifed
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 denies
the ability of artists to create new works, in whatever form they wish,
that refect 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 the
large 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 Bonnefs
17
Art and Life + Melanesia
I have included material from all the countries of Melanesia, PNG
dominates because of the sheer size of its population (approaching fve
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 in
Vanuatu: 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 frst 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, Pacifc History Association Conference,
University of the South Pacifc, July 1985.
6
Ibid.
7
Mel, 2002, Ples bilong mi: Interfacing Global and Indigenous Knowledge
in Mapping out a Pacifc Vision at Home and Abroad, p. 42.
8
As discussed in Chapter 9.
9
No Melanesian artists were included in the 2002 Asia Pacifc 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 Pacifc Art in
Europe, p. 21.
18
Art and Life in Melanesia
CHAPTER 3
art & life
+kastom
Martin Morububuna (Trobriand Islands, PNG)
Tabuya,1990
Pastelonpaper
Privatecollection.
PhotographHughStevenson.
19
Indigenous societies in Melanesia had
long-established social hierarchies, systems of belief and ritual
practices, patterns of trade and ceremonial exchange in taim bipo
(pasttime),manyofwhichpersisttothisday.TheMelanesianterm
kastom refers to indigenous power relations, customs and ways,
and encompasses whatWestern culture calls tradition. Kastom is
a key source of identity and meaning and is important in shaping
developmentandsocialchangeinMelanesiansocieties.Itmightbe
usedasanoppositionalconcepttoWesterncultureortoIndonesian
culture or to Christianity, but it has also proved to be fexible 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 defnes it as the body of customs, traditions, observances
and beliefs of some or all of the Torres Strait Islanders living in
the Torres Strait area, and includes any such customs, traditions,
observancesandbeliefsrelatingtoparticularpersons,areas,objects
or relationships.
2
Torres Strait commentator Mary Bani criticised
this legal defnition as fawed, because it did not encompass the
signifcant Islander population living on the mainland of Australia,
manyofwhomaredeeplyinvolvedinculturalactivities.
Kastom bilong ples (local custom)
TheTokPisinphrasekastom bilong ples signifes attachment to a
particulargroupwhoseculturalpracticesareboundtotheirownlaws,
societyandenvironment.Itwasandstillisoftenunderstressfrom
governments, foreign corporations, churches and aid organisations
withtheirgoalsofdevelopment.
The loss or disruption of kastom might be keenly felt, as the
anthropologistJaapTimmerdescribesoftheImyanpeopleofWest
Papua:
LossofknowledgehasputImyansocietyinthepredicament
presently felt. The loss of knowledge is believed to have
20
Art and Life in Melanesia