Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

The sea container from the tiny island of Niue also interacts and intersects with the trad itions of the destination culture. Based on social rituals associated with food preparation and consumption , its juxtaposition near the Gallery's bistro creates an un intended cultural transaction with a western trad ition which could be seen as a parody of sorts. Discarded thongs and other cast-offs from foreign parts that litter the shoreline of Niue are collaged into the fabric of the interior with labels from imported tinned food and mail art posted from different parts of the world. These bear witness to the accommodation of change and the expansion of traditional networks. These once foreign objects in this busy field of signs are elements that together produce a self-reflective narrative or self-portrait of an island . These islanders, once d ispossessed , have repossessed the sea container, a symbol of the imposition of colon ial culture, and have exported back to the West a representation of themselves as they see themselves, hermetically sealed against further unsolicited intervention. They have brought with them their own gallery. It functions like a walk-in d isplay case resonating against other museological practices by the dominant cultures that have defined and confined them like prisoners of the past. Both works are self-authored narrative texts. With reference to James Clifford's essay Travelling Cultures' these native-informants , previously the passive subjects of anthropological discourse provid ing oral text for western narratives, have re-presented themselves as active agents, as co-travelers or co-inscribers . They are no longer those who stay unchanged at home. And in this gallery which is multi-layered like an archaeological dig, we experience a negotiation between the western modern ist art tradition apparent in the geometry of the cube at this exhibition site, the interplanar and the m inimal wh ich informs the controlling aesthetic of the exh ibition and the essentially organic, cluttered and wonderfully messy visual express ion so characteristic of the Pacific, enhancing the relevance of d ifference. Moving from the sea to the desert, from the Pacific basin to the Pacific rim , one is exposed to the enormous geographic and cultural diversity of this region . In the paintings of Michael Nelson Jagamara we are presented with a clear example of the on-going negotiation between traditions in many places and in many spaces in one generational time frame through the experiences of one individual . We can see that whilst Jagamara's identity is grounded in an ancient past, i t is the everyday actual practice, the endo-relations, that actual ise it. The traditions of his past interlace with his career as an artist i n the western world, h is everyday experiences as a ceremonial man, a Western Desert painter and a Walpiri man in touch with his country drawing on its spiritual strength. [IMAGES] Michael the Aborig inal artist at home in his outdoor studio. Michael the urbane man of 'culture' in Sydney at the Art Gal lery of New South Wales during the 1 986 Sydney B iennale. Michael the international artist. Phoning home from New York. [Nov. 1 988] Michael with the 1 2 metre Sydney Opera House B icentenn ial Mural he created [Jan. 1 988] Michael in Washington as part of an international art car project. An itinerant in a lineage with the international western art movement along with Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and others who previously painted cars as part of this BMW project. [May 1 989] Michael the cultural ambassador. Meeting the British monarch Queen El izabeth at the open ing of Parliament House in Austral ia's capital city where a mosaic of h is dreamings negotiate the space between wh ite man's law and black man's law. Two foundational narratives in an unresolved partnership existing side by side in an awkward d isplay of pol itical reconciliation . The subversive potential was not missed by u rban Aboriginal activists who exploited it as a potent pol itical arena to get native title successfully back onto the agenda. Michael is seen being recruited , somewhat unwillingly, as a pol itical activist. [Sept. 1 993] 85