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

34 №1 NEIGHBOUR THE EARLY YEARS CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE ROLE ART PLAYED IN FORGING IDENTITY AT THIS TIME? Nora Vagi Brash Art played a significant role. The National Theatre Company, for example, was selected to stage Papua New Guinea’s exhibition presence at the Commonwealth Institute in London. 7 We staged a satirical play all in Tok Pisin (pidgin English) by the late Johnbili Tokome at Trafalgar Square and the Bristol Museum. Oli Kam Na Paulim Yumi 1973 was about the invasion of the islands by the missionaries and the colonialists. When I was interviewed by the BBC, I was asked how I felt dancing topless in Trafalgar Square. I said, ‘You did want us to show you our culture and that’s what we came to do. Besides, I don’t know what the fuss is about when God gave us beautiful bodies’. At this time, we represented Papua New Guinean art and culture internationally in Nigeria, New Zealand, Tahiti and Australia. Joe Nalo Art played an important role during that period because it helped to illustrate and bring into reality unique and rich ideas not recorded by technology before. The artist has an understanding of and access to different things in his/her environment and culture — for example, I went on field trips to track lost pieces of the world — and traditional sacred knowledge is transformed by the artist into new forms of music, performance and visual art. Martin Fowler That the new nation needed its own identity became apparent as reality set in. The Australians were to leave after independence. 8 At the time, Chief Minister Somare realised that endemic local rivalries, tied to local tribal identities, had been kept in check by the actions and provisions imposed by these (neutral) outsiders with power. So, as Bernard Narokobi and others saw it, 9 the citizens had to be offered an overarching national identity strong enough to combat the seemingly inevitable problems of internal fragmentation and conflict. If the people adopted such an idea of unity, they could adapt to the change about to come. They proposed that such an identity could be based on a common sense of being Melanesian. It was to be a multifaceted cultural operation spanning the whole of the former territories. As Melanesians, the many peoples of the new nation could be proudly diverse. They may be traditional, modern, coastal, Highlanders, Islanders — whatever their backgrounds, they all were Melanesian Papua New Guineans. How things were decided and how they were done was ‘the Melanesian way’. 10 Most obvious were the underlying themes in traditional cultural expression — elaborate body adornment, types of ceremonies, and expressions embodied in bilum, basketry and pottery, as well as expression in storytelling, song and dance. All had common Melanesian resonances. Painting, carving and architecture also embodied and displayed distinctive ‘Melanesian-ness’. With independence, what had been a subtle and inconsistent process dramatically accelerated. It now had an urgent purpose, new forms and institutions, and real national prominence. The National Arts School was established and the other national cultural institutions followed. The vibrant and important artworks and productions created at this time at the National Arts School helped form a new, modern, urban Melanesian cultural identity. New modes of artistic expression and endeavour have emerged and evolved ever since. Nora Vagi Brash (left), with Tony Subam (Sanguma) and William Takaku (Director, National Theatre Company), Port Moresby, 1985 / Image courtesy: Nora Vagi Brash OPPOSITE Joe Nalo, APT1, QAG, 1993 / Photograph: Ray Fulton