Putting the Pacific

on show

Story by Liz Thompson Photography by Jennifer Leahy

Pacific Fringe was an exhibition of the work of traditional Pacific Island artists who live and work in Sydney.

For many of these artists, it was the first time they had exhibited their work and many spoke of the importance of retaining and passing on traditional cul ture through such a show.

The continuing creation of these cul tural icons is part of the Pacific Island communities’ traditional cultural identi ties which artists hoped they could pass on to their families and communities.

Curated by Con Gouriotis and drawing on work from all over the Pacific, the exhibition was largely made up of objects which have either practical or ceremonial uses, rather than being produced solely for the sake of aesthetics.

Joyce Arosame Robertson from Papua New Guinea, who now lives in Sydney, exhibited beautiful bilum bags.

Traditionally, bilum were made of rolled bark, decorated with traditional vegetable dyes and incorporated designs drawing on such shapes as pig tusks or flying fox wings.

Today’s bilum, as shown by Arosame

Robertson, is often made of acrylic wool and decorated with coloured powder paints. The designs incorporate modern day icons and strange rectangular patterns echo the shape of telegraph poles. Almost everybody in Papua New Guinea who car ries a bag, carries a bilum.

Christina Da Silva Viegas from East Timor exhibited hair nets using the tradi tional fishing net method. Usually, fish ing nets are made by men but Christina uses the same process, taught to her by her father, to create hair nets.

Says her daughter: ‘“The nets mum brought out from Timor when we came had already ripped so she needed to make some more.

“This is all just a miniature version of the things mum’s dad used to make for

fishing.”

One of the most vibrant and perhaps uplifting exhibits on show were the quilts with huge exotic flower designs made from satin applique made by the Cook Islanders.

Elizabeth Denise, who was bom in the Cook Islands and now lives in Sydney, explains the quilts were traditionally used as part of their daughters’ dowries. ‘“lf you can’t do these things, what are you going to give to the man?” she explains. ‘“You feel ashamed in front of the fam ily. That’s our way back home, that’s why we try our best in this country to do the same thing we were doing back home.”

The vibrant flowers are a sign of the people’s relationship with the environ ment.

Bilum detail

Detail of a Pacific Island quilt

‘“We are bom,” says Denise, ‘“into the world with all these native plants, flowers and everything. It is precious to our people because we use it. We can use the flowers for medicine, we can use the roots for medicine.

“ Any native flower of the Cook Islands is very important to our people because we make use of it.”

Among the works on view are elabo rate burial robes made by members of the Tongan community and Tuku Tuku made

by the Maori community.

Like a story board of the family, a Tuku Tuku is broken into sections according to the number of family members, each sec tion has a particular meaning and contains a Maori word.

In the Pacific Fringe Tuku Tuku there were seven spaces.

Traditionally made out of woven and dyed flax and used for special ceremonies, the Tuku Tuku indicates the position of the individual within the community.

The one on show was slightly different in that the artists used synthetic material such as nylon strips, masonite boards and wooden rods. As with many of the art forms shown in Pacific Fringe, they are adaptable - it is very difficult for the artists to get native materials because of Customs restrictions.

But this does not mean the objects have a lesser significance. The Tuku Tuku is really about the doing and the communica tion through the object and what it actual-

ly means to the Maori culture.

One of the highlights of the exhibition was the extraordinary feather cloak, or Korowia, made by the Maori Women’s Welfare League on behalf of the Maori people of Minto in Sydney.

Traditionally, these cloaks hold a great deal of power relative to the power of those who create it and those who receive it.

The cloak exhibited in Pacific Fringe used a wide range of Australian bird feath ers to symbolise the integration of ele ments of Australian culture into the identi ty of islanders now living in Australia.

At the end of the exhibition. Echoes of the Cook Islands, a local dance group, built a mumu, or earth oven, outside the gallery. They played guitars, sang and cooked a feast for the hundreds of people who gathered to watch. From the Casula Powerhouse point of view, the success of Pacific Fringe created a strong foundation for further projects.

The formal idea behind the exhibition was a recognition of the diverse Pacific Island cultures in the region. It was seen by thousands of Sydneysiders, who gained great insight into the rich cultural tradi tions and experiences of many of their

own community.

The exhibition described the diverse Pacific cultures within the Sydney region and illustrated that these cultures hold a complex mix of different art practices.

For Pacific Islanders, it affirmed the value of these traditions and communicat ed this to the younger generation.

As a follow-on, Casula Powerhouse is planning another exhibition in November called Oceania which will incorporate three performance groups who integrate contemporary Pacific Island arts with tra ditional forms.

The content of Oceania will be more critical of the position of Pacific Island people within Australia, incorporating the expression of a search for identity in main stream Australian culture.

In November, Albie Viegas, daughter of Christina Da Silva Viegas, will exhibit her work.

In an earlier exhibition she showed enormous fishing nets which were sus pended from the ceiling. Attached to these were pieces of green cloth so that the object had the appearance of a camouflage net.

In these nets, small lead packages hung filled with rice.

Traditionally made of leaves, these packages are called Katupa. Viegas,

forced to leave East Timor, as were many after the Indonesian takeover, used these ominous hard-lead food packages and nets to turn everyday, peaceful objects into objects of war.

This work speaks of a military regime which has tortured thousands and forced many to flee overseas with an irreparable sense of loss. The search for a sense of identity and a sense of meaning in the face of such experiences will be the subject of much of the work exhibited at Oceania. ■

Hair net

Quilts

Funeral wall