The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

1 Two trips were made to Papua New Guinea, one to East New Britain and the Sepik in July 2011 and a follow-up trip to the Sepik region in November 2011. These were conducted by Ruth McDougall, Curator, Pacific Art; Michael O’Sullivan, Senior Exhibition Designer; and Martin Fowler, project Co-Curator. 2 See essays by Martin Fowler and Michael Kisombo in this publication for more detailed discussion of the works in this presentation. Diane Losche also responds to the major Sepik commissions in her essay ‘Ephemeral splendour: New Guinea in The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial’, Art & Australia , vol.50, no.2, 2012, pp.260–7. 3 This conversation occurred in Port Moresby, November 2011. 4 The story of the Abelam korumbo is the story of the spirit Kwatbil, a giant bird who shielded a pregnant woman beneath its wings. This effected a transformation in the woman’s body, providing her with a previously non-existent birth canal, as well as producing the first korumbo . See Diane Losche ‘What do Abelam images want from us?: Plato’s Cave and Kwatbil’s Belly’ in The Australian Journal of Anthropology , vol.8, no.1, 1997, p.43. 5 Collaboration with other clan groups on the creation of a koromb is quite common in Kwoma villages, where the male members of any one clan group can be small in number and therefore not able to undertake such a huge task on their own. For a detailed exploration of this as well as the Kwoma totemic clan structure and how it is institutionalised as visual art, see Ross Bowden, Creative Spirits; Bark Painting in the Washkuk Hills of North New Guinea , Oceanic Art, Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2006, and Ross Bowden, Yena: Art and Ceremony in a Sepik society , Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1983, pp.17–43. 6 Anthony Forge. ‘Learning to see in New Guinea’ in Philip Mayer (ed.) Socialisation: The Approach from Social Anthropology , ASA Monograph 8, Tavistock, New York, 1970, p.289. 7 The positioning and overall design of this project owes much to the input of Michael O’Sullivan as well as architect and Co-Curator Martin Fowler. 8 Travel to East New Britain and the Sepik regions was undertaken to meet with artists and community representatives within the context of their communities. The travel of 10 Sepik artists to Brisbane from 24 January – 18 March 2012 enabled a wide spectrum of Gallery staff, sponsors, media and local community members to meet with the artists, and be introduced to their art and culture. Local Aboriginal elders also visited the workshop in a strong cultural exchange. 9 In Kwoma villages, when a child dies, the mother can loop a bilum, which is decorated with cowrie shell valuables and offered to the best friend of the deceased child. A new surrogate parent–child relationship is created when the friend accepts this gift. The surrogate relationship that was created on this occasion was one of a female sibling for the three senior Kwoma artists from the Wanyi clan. to adulthood. Like this initiation, the making of masks is collaborative and part of an extended ceremony in which, at different stages, the whole community may be involved. As such, the masks act as conduits of spiritual power and knowledge, and important communal relations. The masks and commissioned structures created for APT7 are contemporary expressions of kastom . The artists have been cast into multiple spaces and new relationships — from the New Britain artists performing complex ceremonies at the National Mask Festival in Kokopo, to the Abelam and Kwoma artists travelling to Brisbane to create the work, finalise installation design, and meet members of the Brisbane community. Although many of the works may look different — having been created in brightly coloured acrylics and utilising found materials — and may have greater longevity, their purpose as a vehicle to honour ancestral spirits, transfer knowledge, and create and maintain relationships, has been maintained. Writing about Abelam art, the anthropologist Anthony Forge observed: Abelam art is about relationships, not about things . . . One of the main functions of the initiation system with its repetitive exposures of initiates to art is, I would suggest, to teach young men to see the art, not so that he may consciously interpret it but so that he is directly affected by it. 6 Such insights have influenced the installation of the Papua New Guinean masks and architectural structures in this exhibition. 7 Moving from the Gallery of Modern Art’s lofty entrance, down the long, light-filled space of the central Long Gallery, audiences are taken on a journey. We encounter art aiming to make the greatest possible aesthetic impact, from the vertiginous scale of the architectural structures rising out of nowhere, through the dramatic use of saturated colour, contrasting patterns and textures found on the masks, to the optical dynamism of the Kwoma koromb ceiling. Such a journey is always a social process and our awareness of its importance has guided the way we chose to work with these artists and their communities developing this work and its installation here in Brisbane. 8 One particular feature of Kwoma culture are bilums especially created to establish relations independent of kinship. 9 Before they departed, the Kwoma artists undertook a special bilum ceremony, extending their kinship ties to us here — the bilum’s looped strings, circled above our heads, were echoed by the artists moving around our small group, looping a new circle of relations. During a conversation about this ceremony, Rex Maukos explained, ‘now you are one of us, you are looking after our culture. We are connected’. To return, then, to Dr Andrew Moutu’s comments about the korombo skeleton, it is the persistence of a culture, created and maintained through strong relations with others, that these artists seek to preserve and nurture through their art. This seems a wonderful place from which to set out on such a journey. 225