Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

SESS ION 5 : H ISTORY/MEMORYNOYAGES J im Vivieaere The Art of Bottling a Ship: The Polynisation of Art TENA KOTOU KATOA, KIA ORANA, TALOFA LAVA, MALO E LEI LEI FAKA LOFA LAH IATU , BULA VI NAKA, NI HAO, GREETI NGS. This opening volley of salutations is the standard practice for some New Zealand speakers when add ressing an audience, especially in the City of Auckland, the City of Sails, the biggest Polynesian C ity in the World. The Art of Welcoming has been Polynesian-ised . The peopling of New Zealand , Aotearoa , is a documented known , in both myth and fiction . Navigators from the North, Sout h , East and West. Migrants, from the 'many Islands in the Ocean', or as the anthropologist, Epeli Hau'ofa says, 'from the Sea of Islands'. Polynesia , the name, in this sense, means 'many lands'. New Zealand the Nation , is d ivided by convention , artifice and statistics. 3 point something mi llion heads, 500 ,000, that identify as Maori , one hundred and eighty thousand Pacific Islanders. But numbers and categories are misleading , they fail to indicate fluidity of race , trans-cu ltu ral expanse, and invisible traits that exist. Polyn isation is a word coined , it implies diversity, without suggesting colours or cultures. And l ike monologue and d ialogue, that have characterised the dominant voices in New Zealand , we get Polylogue, a fake derivative, that could be seen as the presentation of many voices. The New Zealand Artists at this Triennial are a Collective , they play with this Language Pattern , articulating a sound, with , and agai nst each other. The New Zealand Pacific Face appears through the metaphor of the Waka , the Boat, the Ship. A vessel of Ideas conveyed from one place to another, a voyage from there to here; a voyage from the eye to the mind. The ship itself is captured within a context, as if i n a Bottle. A Bottled ship is a handmade Watercraft, contai ned in a g lass vessel , that has a restricted opening. It unfolds inside, effectively filling the i nterior, which in its completed state, achieves its passage, as though by magic, through the Bottleneck. The Bottle becomes a Harbour, a Shelter, a trapped rememberance, a location for viewi ng. For the Artists, the constructed contents, must negotiate the machinery of the Selection processes, which cou ld be seen as the bottle-neck. It is within this G iven, that they may enter and fulfi l the potential of the space. In New Zealand we are just as familiar with the concept of containment, Build i ngs whe re Exhibition blurs with location and identity. 72