Dulcie Stewart and Donita Hulme – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 11.20 – 11.40
Bio:
The Veiqia Project is a Fijian female collective made up of artists, curators, researchers, and academics based in Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaiʻi. The collective is inspired by the traditional practice of Fijian female tattooing and uses exhibitions, research findings and workshops to invite Fijian women to take a journey of artistic and cultural discovery.
Abstract:
Caught in mid-conversation: The Veiqia Project
In a paper presented at PAA XII we asked, ‘What have we lost as iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) women? What can we regain from reviving the conversation amongst ourselves?’
This presentation will share:
• how The Veiqia Project has regenerated cultural conversations about the practice amongst iTaukei communities and
• research undertaken as a creative female iTaukei collective.
Steven Hooper – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 11.20 – 11.40
Bio:
Steven Hooper first undertook research in Lau, Fiji, in 1977-1980 and has continued to work there, especially on projects linked with Fiji Museum. In 2016 he published Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific (Fiji Museum and UEA), and co-curated the exhibition of the same name at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich.
Abstract:
A bright future for old things? Comparing canoes and great barkcloths in Fiji
Canoes and great barkcloths have continued to be made and presented at large ceremonial exchanges (solevu) in Fiji, but large-scale exchanges occur with less frequency nowadays. So what is the future for such highly regarded iyau (exchange valuables) and the skills of their makers? This paper will reflect on the contrasting fortunes of traditional chiefly valuables in Fiji, and the factors which affect them.
Donna Campbell – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 11.20 – 11.40
Bio:
Māori tribal affilliations: Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Ruanui - Donna Campbell is a Senior Lecturer and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. She is a practicing artist and avid researcher in the areas of raranga and whatu (Māori weaving arts). Donna has presented her research and exhibited nationally and internationally. Her creative work is held in prestigious collection such as the MAA Cambridge, London, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art Willamette University, Oregon USA, the Bishop Museum Honolulu Hawaii, and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington. Key research interests are cultural empowerment through creative practice in Māori weaving arts, customary knowledge recovery and contemporary practice.Donna Campbell is a Senior Lecturer and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. She is a practicing artist and avid researcher in the areas of raranga and whatu (Māori weaving arts). Donna has presented her research and exhibited nationally and internationally. Her creative work is held in prestigious collection such as the MAA Cambridge, London, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art Willamette University, Oregon USA, the Bishop Museum Honolulu Hawaii, and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington. Key research interests are cultural empowerment through creative practice in Māori weaving arts, customary knowledge recovery and contemporary practice.
Abstract:
Forgotten Memories: Embodied Indigenous Knowledge in the Māori Fibre Arts
Traditonal Māori weaving arts are decolonising practices that embody traditional knowledge systems. Through the story of the creation of a korowai (traditional cloak) told from a weavers perspective, insights into cultural practices that claim indigenous space and voice are discussed.
Wonu Veys – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 11.20 – 11.40
Bio:
Bio: Dr. Fanny Wonu Veys, curator Oceania (National Museum of World Cultures, Netherlands) has worked at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge) and has held postdoctoral fellowships (Metropolitan Museum of Art; Musée du Quai Branly). She has curated several exhibitions and done fieldwork in New Zealand, Tonga and Arnhem Land
Abstract: Revisiting the art of Tongan tattooing
This paper aims at analysing and contextualising some preliminary findings on seventeenth and eighteenth-century tattooing in Tonga. Through voyage accounts, drawings, and objects, I would like to challenge the idea that virtually nothing is known about the visual elements of Tonga’s pre-nineteenth-century art of tattooing.
Oliver Lueb – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 13.30 – 13.50
Bio:
Oliver Lueb is Curator Oceania and Deputy Director at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum – Cultures of the World, Cologne, Germany. Co-Curator and -Editor of: “Made in Oceania: Tapa – Art and Social Landscapes”; Author of: “The Power of the Artefacts. Dancewear and Adornment on Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands” (in German language only).
Abstract:
Twilight Zone – Feasting in and between the Worlds: The alue-Circle in Santa Cruz
In traditional cycles of feastings, people on Santa Cruz enter into reciprocal socio-cosmic relationships. After a decline from the 1970s on, these festivities have been increasing again since the 2000s and have been driving re-activations of local knowledge systems (kastom) which appear in manifold art forms which constitute them and enable diverse affiliations.
Amélie Roussillon – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 13.30 – 13.50
Bio:
Amélie Roussillon is a PhD candidate at the Sainsbury Research Unit (UEA, Norwich). Her research focuses on the collecting processes of Abelam collections (from the East Sepik Province, PNG) held in several European and Australian museums and interrogates the relationships between the various agents at the core of these assemblages.
Abstract:
(Re)collecting Abelam: from Papua New Guinea to museums, materiality and encounters
This paper aims to revaluate Abelam collections held in European and Australian museums. By looking both at the objects and archival documents they comprise, it aims at reappraising the dialogical nature of these collections, while unlocking the voices and agency of the various actors, notably Abelam ones, who contributed to their assemblage.
Paul Davis – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 13.50 – 14.10
Bio:
Bio: Paul Davis brings to the Menil curatorial expertise in the arts of Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the ancient Americas,as well as seasoned university-level teaching and community engagement. Paul’s passion for non-Western, modern, and contemporary art, along with his academic achievements,resonate excitingly with our growing collection. After earning his bachelor’s degree from California State University,Chico, Davis continued his studies at Indiana University,Bloomington, earning his master’s degree in African and modern and contemporary art. His doctoral dissertation, ASocial History of Painting in Bamako, Mali, 1930s -1980s, drewon four years of interviews and archival research in Mali,France, and Italy to examine the practices of painters and the role of art institutions in Bamako during colonial and postin dependence periods. Davis was awarded his Ph.D. in 2012.Abstract: Vanuatu in Texas: Histories of kastom in Museum CollectionsSylvia Cockburn – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 13.50 – 14.10
Bio:
Sylvia Cockburn is a curator and doctoral candidate whose research centres on relationships and dialogues between contemporary Pacific artists and ethnographic museums. She is currently based in the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and previously worked as Assistant Curator of Indigenous Cultures at the Queensland Museum
Abstract:
Connecting cultures: reframing relationships between museums and contemporary Pacific artists
This paper discusses current relationships between contemporary Pacific artists and museums. Drawing on interviews with artists, curators and other museum professionals, I consider how collaborative projects can best achieve their aims to reactivate museum collections and connect curatorial practice with Indigenous knowledge systems.
Deborah Waite – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 14.10 – 14.30
Bio:
Professor of Pacific Art History PhD Columbia University
Abstract:
Barava Openwork Clam Shell Plaques Past and Present from Solomon Islands: Their exhibitions in Museums
Messages are coded through the framing/presentation of barava in museums. Traditional display cases of old (custom) barava. Contrast with the new diaply and contemporary ones. Neither refelcts the process and movement that have always defined barava
Merri Randell – Parallel Session
Tuesday 26th March: 14.10 – 14.30
Bio: Merri Randell is a visual storyteller from regional Australia and her cinematic artworks have been finalists in five national art awards. Working in distorted realities, Randell combines hyper-real photography of post-colonial Australian, New Zealand/Aotearo, Peruvian and Hawaiian forests with sacred sonics and uncanny motion to conceive immersive cinematic artworks and installations.
Abstract: Constructing Monstrosities: Working with First Peoples Identity concepts
Dr Merri Randell’s research involves the creation of landscapes that consume, breathe and reproduce - visually and audibly - so that these typically hidden botanical events can be experienced as cinematic artworks and installations. Her discussion focuses on the evolution of an installation for Māori group exhibition ‘He kākano āhau’ (2018).