No.1 Neighbour: Art in Papua New Guinea 1956-2016

32 №1 NEIGHBOUR THE EARLY YEARS The following week I was employed by the National Arts School to be a puppeteer and to help with the dance and drama company. With my players in 1975, I wrote The High Cost of Living Differently and Which Way, Big Man? , and other plays. The time was just right for some of us who had been dabbling in the field, but not making any progress. There had been talk that our work was not up to scratch, but some of us went on regardless. My own attitude at the time was: ‘Let’s just get on with it and put on the plays’. For me, the most important thing was to see the reaction of audiences. For the first ten years, we played to big crowds; the people were thirsty for plays, and, most times to appease them, we would put on impromptu acts. We were given a vehicle by the Australia Council for the Arts. The truck was painted by our artists and the vehicle was a very welcome sight around towns, markets and rural villages. Sometimes we would stay in the villages and people would give us food. At this time, I was writing so much — puppet plays, interpreting legends, scripts for half-hour sketches — my creativity went into overdrive. Martin Fowler In 1965, I was a staff clerk at the Department of Information and Extension Services in Port Moresby, a vibrant, creative place before independence. Young Papua New Guineans worked there. Michael Somare began in broadcasting, 1 others were in extension programs, in art and film. I went off to university in Australia, studied architecture, returned at year’s end, and worked with an architect in Port Moresby. In 1972, recently graduated, I got a job at the Public Works Department. Independence was fast approaching. I got two challenging projects — first a low-budget workshop for the new Creative Arts Centre, then a new Chief Minister’s office at the House of Assembly (for Michael Somare). 2 Some young architects enthusiastically challenged conventional colonial models and standards. The gallery and the drama building at the National Arts School were my attempts to fuse climate-adapted design with local materials and strong, simple tilted forms (Abelam-like) 3 to create new spaces and expressions. Both buildings were then recognised as new architectural forms in Papua New Guinea, which was encouraging. 4 Making distinctive PNG architecture became a real issue when Michael Somare rejected a Public Works Department design. As I recall, he said it was culturally offensive, a ‘concrete matchbox’. 5 Up the Sepik River he sent me, to see ‘real PNG architecture’, which was very exciting and eye-opening. After the trip, I was allowed to finish designing the National Museum building. Independence happened very fast. We were all so busy. In hindsight, most of us did work no-one would have imagined entrusting to such young people. I was 25 when I was given the National Museum job. PNG professionals and leaders were young too: Somare was in his thirties when he became Chief Minister. They inspired and encouraged us through what they did in their own fields. The experience with such cultural and independence-related projects marked a major shift in my practice. I had gained a heightened awareness of the role that art and expression can play in creating civic urban forms and in publicly displaying identity and aspiration. Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, Port Moresby, c.1977 / Image courtesy: Martin Fowler OPPOSITE Performing Nora Vagi Brash’s play Taurama , as part of the tenth anniversary of Papua New Guinean independence, Hubert Murray Highway, Port Moresby, 1985 / Image courtesy: Nora Vagi Brash