The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia, 1996 : Report

Micheline Neporon has revived the traditional Kanak art of engraved bamboo. Originally a male art form, the engraved bamboo was used by the Kanaks to depict, through incised drawings, their history and stories. Neporon is the first woman to take up this art form and has developed her own vocabulary, combining the traditional technique with contemporary elements and an innovative use of materials. In her statement the artist explains that La Foret des Ancetres ( The forest of the ancestors) symbolises the past and present of Kanak life: The highest bamboo represents the top of the chiefs hut; the other pieces of bamboo represent his subjects. According to Kanak tradition , the forest - 'the house of the ancestors' - is the place where the souls of our dead l ive on forever. I n bygone days, the bodies of the dead were taken to the forest, away from everybody's sight. There , 'mourners' would watch them decompose. Afterwards, they would collect the skulls and hide them under rocks. The spirit of the dead would then live freely in the dense forest which would become a sacred or 'taboo' place for the living. In the tribes, the story goes that from dusk to dawn, the spirits dance a 'pilou' to the melodious sound of the bamboo. A stronger spring for David: Toas for a modem age is a humorous and intriguing assemblage of thirty-four toas or land markers, created from found-objects. The work pays homage to the creativity and inventiveness of Australian I ndigenous peoples, in particular David Unaipon, an Aboriginal inventor active in the early 1 900s. It appears that for many years David worked the agricultural shows in rural areas. I n a sideshow tent, he had erected a spring upon which a steel ball would fall. The steel ball would bounce back up but not quite as high as the point from whence it came. At this point David would explain to the audience his theory of perpetual motion and then pass around the hat, suggesting that if people were to give him some money he could t ti en buy a stronger spring - hence the title of my piece. (extract from artist's statement) The presentation of this work in the context of the Pacific revealed two essential orientations that differentiate indigenous cultures within the same region : the cultures of the islands are characterised by their ancestral connection to the sea, while mainland Australian cultures are strongly linked with the land. 31