The return of cultural treasures

Vanuatu's largest art exhibition sees the return home of traditional artefacts from the world over

The biggest art exhibition ever organised on culture-rich Vanuatu was to be officially opened on June 28 in the cap ital, Port Vila. The show, featuring unique artefacts taken from the archipelago decades ago, will then travel to Noumea (New Caledonia), Basel (Switzerland) and Paris (France). Most of these objects have not been seen here in living memory.

Entitled “Vanuatu-Oceania, arts of ash and coral islands”, the exhibition is jointly organised and funded by the museum of Port Vila, the French association of national museums, the French Territory of neighbouring New Caledonia and the Basel Museum of anthropology (Switzerland).

It, however, had been postponed since 1994, because Vanuatu’s national museum did not at the time have the proper facilities to host such an exhibition. Last November, a new museum was officially opened in the Island state capital, thus paving the way for the long-planned exhibition, which will fea

ture traditional items from this part of Melanesia, such as masks, statues and carved stones.

World specialists of Vanuatu culture, including anthropolo gists from France, Switzerland, Australia and Britain, have worked to select of some 200 items and draft the exhibition’s catalogue.

The show will travel from Port Vila (June 28-August 10) to Noumea, New Caledonia (September 3-October 30), Basel, Switzerland, (March 15-August 10, 1997) and Paris, France (September 30, 1997-February 2, 1998).

“It’s the first exhibition that’s so complete about the arts of Vanuatu because, at every leg of the tour, each museum will add items from its own collection which couldn’t be transported because they are too fragile. So there will be a different angle in each museum,” says Christian Kaufmann, curator of the Basel Museum in Switzerland.

World experts regard Vanuatu (a former French-British con dominium of the New Hebrides, independent in 1980 and archipelago of some 80 island) as a country particularly rich in culture, where each island has its own distinct style of traditions and language. ■