Blog – Page 3 – Pacific Presences

Posted on November 25, 2014 in Uncategorized

Alana and curator Wonu Veys in the Museum Volkenkunde stores. Copyright Ali Clark.

In this blog post Alana Jelinek discusses her work on the Pacific Presence Project to date:

I have argued that art practice can be knowledge-forming, just as anthropology or the sciences are knowledge-forming. Art can be knowledge-forming even when it doesn’t set out to create knowledge. Often, though, it isn’t. Often contemporary art practice is about design, the illustration of other ideas or simply building a career and making money, but sometimes art does something more, something in addition. In my case, having proposed this idea, I start out with that ambition. Of course, it is possible that I will fail just as anyone who attempts to create (new) knowledge will sometimes fail. Artists in general don’t have ‘methods’ in the same sense as anthropologists have methods but I am aware of this concept since working with visual anthropologist Ulrike Folie on this project and so I will describe my method. (Artists like me, whose work has its roots in conceptual art, instead, have rules through which a particular artwork is made.)

Choosing objects. Copyright Ulrike Folie.

The project’s working title is ‘Knowing’ and I have invited a range of people from various backgrounds to talk about objects in the collection of Volkenkunde, Leiden, Netherlands, one of our partners in ‘Pacific Presences’. My aim originally was to explore the politics of occupation and colonialism through the objects from Papua, inviting people from Papua, from Java and of Dutch origin to talk about the objects in the collection, including objects from their own cultures. Stories about objects, some familiar, some chosen by other people, and some chosen by the participants themselves, are recorded on an audio recorder. The interaction with the objects is also filmed with only the hands and the objects in the frame. I believe that people become self-conscious when their face is filmed and so, because I wanted to keep people feeling safe and open, filming was of hands and objects only. The other main reason for the choice centres on the final film. I believe we make assumptions about a person and therefore what they’re saying based on their face. In order to increase parity of reception about the different stories, knowledge, across my ‘informants’, my participants, no faces are shown.

Participants and a fish trap. Copyright Ulrike Folie.

Originally, I wanted to invite people from both Java and Sulawesi in addition to Papuan people because the majority of ‘transmigrants’ to Papua are from those two Indonesian islands. The term transmigration describes the movement of people from the Western islands of Indonesia to Papua. This is understood, by some, to be a political move in anticipation of a referendum on Papuan independence promised by the Indonesian government, which is based in Java, far to the west of the island group. In the early 1960s, Papua was promised independence from its then colonial rulers, the Dutch, who had also colonised the rest of what is now known as Indonesia. Dutch colonial rule came to an end after World War 2 with a bloody war against Indonesian independence that the Indonesians won. The Dutch retained Papua, to which some of the colonial Dutch fled after independence. Just as with so much of global geopolitics in the 1960s, the fate of Papua was written through the trope of Cold War. Fearing Indonesia would go the way of Korea, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, the US government pressured the Dutch into leaving early and handing over Papua (an extraordinarily rich part of the world in material and mining terms) to capitalist Indonesia. There was a ceremony at the time to create the fiction that Papuans wanted to be part of Indonesia which is to be redressed with a new democratic referendum in the future. Some believe transmigration is a policy to alter the population demographics of Papua in favour of those who are likely to vote to stay as part of Indonesia. In the end, I only found people from Java to participate, which is lucky because Sulawesi has a very different culture from Java and all these differences might have been difficult to navigate in the film. That said, I now understand how culturally diverse is Java in the first place and this is before I get to the famously diverse (in terms of language, ethnicity, culture, etc) of Papua.

Participants and a kris knife. Copyright Ulrike Folie.

Originally I also mistakenly assumed that the ‘colonised’ would be able to talk knowledgeably of their own culture and also that of the coloniser and that this would contrast with the ‘coloniser’, who would know little or nothing about the colonised. Having filmed a variety of participants, it is clear that, to some extent, the anticipated disparity of knowledge was manifested but it is far more complex than that. For example, some Dutch people knew almost nothing of the ‘clog’ but could speak knowledgeably about objects from both Java and Papua and some Papuan people knew little of both Dutch and Javanese cultures except for those technologies they had also adopted or for which they had equivalents. In the end it is likely that this idea, or theme, will be buried under many other, much more interesting ones that have emerged since recording.

Participants and an object. Copyright Ulrike Folie.

Now the real work begins, in the editing suite, bringing out the stories through juxtaposition while doing justice to all the participants’ points of view and weaving together an artwork that makes sense as an artwork.

Alana Jelinek

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The Museum as Method

Posted on November 21, 2014 in Uncategorized

On November 5th and 6th Pacific Presences hosted museum professionals from around the UK, mainland Europe and the US for a two day workshop on the theme Museum as Method. One of the participants Rachel Barclay from Durham University Oriental Museum reflects on the main themes and outcomes of the workshop:

It was a real pleasure to participate in the ‘Museum as Method’ workshop hosted by the Pacific Presences project and the MAA. It was great to have the opening session of the workshop in the museum galleries surrounded by the wonderful collections but there was no risk of being distracted by the displays as Nick Thomas gave the sort of thoughtful, and thought-provoking, introduction to the workshop that anyone who has heard him speak or read his work would expect. Nick built on the themes he outlined in his 2010 article in Museum Anthropology entitled ‘The Museum as Method’ but widened his thoughts beyond anthropology collections to consider museums, and particularly university museums, more broadly. Nick asked us to reflect on two key areas over the course of the workshop:

What kinds of research do collections empower? What is distinctive about museum-based research and what does it add to other forms of enquiry? Are there methods empowered uniquely by museums? What is their potential and how can it be fostered?
What contributions do university museums make to research and is there scope for university museums to be more ambitious in shaping, supporting and collaborating in research?

The workshop group included participants from museums in the UK, Europe and USA and Nick’s introduction sparked a lively discussion on the topic of the museum as laboratory – a space for experimentation and risk taking. The group was quite divided on the positive vs negative connotations that the concept of a lab might have when applied to the museum, but this became a recurring theme over the two days.

Day one, Nick introduces the workshop.

The second day began with two presentations that addressed the question of what kind of research collections empower. Two strongly contrasting case studies were put forward. One a small exhibition in the MAA’s micro gallery, the other a $1million, decade long project at UCLA, involving loans from more than 40 institutions and private collections worldwide. While few of us will ever have the luxury of the kind of budget and time available for the UCLA project, both projects clearly demonstrated the potential for museum collections make unexpected connections and as a natural home for cross-disciplinary working.

The exhibition as a site for knowledge creation, a place for research to be undertaken as much as communicated, resurfaced in the second session. The two case studies – the development of the anthropology galleries in the new Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus and the plans to develop Kelvin Hall in Glasgow to create storage, teaching and research spaces for the Hunterian Museum collections – both demonstrated very clearly just how ambitious university museums can be. They also highlighted the importance of having a distinct offer that will attract funders and visitors as well as the need for risk-taking and experimentation – the museum as laboratory again.

The final session of the day focused on connections and collaborations emphasising the positives and negatives of the climate in which university museums in the UK exist, particularly with regard to funding. Limited core funding has pushed many of us into a constant cycle of applying for project funding. This leaves us with many masters to please, all with widely varying demands, and little chance of pleasing them all.

The whole workshop was very thought provoking and I do hope that plans for a larger conference go ahead. I would certainly attend. We are all struggling with the same questions of how to most effectively realise the research potential of our collections and how we contribute something distinctive to our universities. Sharing thoughts and experiences with colleagues in university museums of widely varying size, type and location provides a wonderful opportunity to be inspired to take a risk and experiment. Museum as laboratory?

Rachel Barclay, Oriental Museum, Durham University.

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The Mundane and the Spectacular: the Admiral Davis collection

Posted on August 7, 2014 in Micronesia, Solomon Islands

In February I visited the Pacific collections at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Quex Park in Birchington on Sea, Kent. The purpose of the visit was to get a general overview of the Pacific collections, which were in the process of being rediscovered and catalogued in a collections review by the newly appointed collections manager. The Powell-Cotton neither has a Pacific focus or an electronic catalogue so the visit was something of a treasure hunt.

The Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park in Kent houses the natural history and ethnographic collections of Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton. Powell-Cotton collected from all over the world but predominately Africa. In 1981 the collections of the Powell-Cotton were assessed by Keith Nicklin for the Museum Ethnographers Group newsletter. He noted that the development of the museum can be understood in three distinct phases; the first as the founding of the museum and the development of its field based collections, the second as the development of the museum itself and cataloguing and filling gaps in the collection, and the third occupied by Nicklin and his article in the 1980s and onwards as the analysis and publication of the collections. The development of the Pacific collections occurred during this second phase. Between 1936-1938, sensing a gap in his collections, Powell-Cotton bought up several collections from the Pacific. His Pacific collections were purchased in six lots from auction houses and local amateur collectors. One of these collections was comprised of 103 objects from the Davis collection and it is this collection that drew my interest.

Edward Henry Meggs Davis commanded the Australian station third class cruiser, H.M.S Royalist, between 1890 and 1893. He sailed around the western Pacific, stopping at the Solomon Islands, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu (Ellice Islands), Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia. The voyage was divided into several trips over the course of three years, with Davis originally working in Vanuatu and New Caledonia in 1890. In 1891 he was then instructed to establish law and order in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea after the deaths of several European traders in the region, and spent a approximately a year there. Davis then sailed around Kiribati and Tuvalu declaring British protectorates amongst the Islands. The Davis collection was made during these assignments and objects were collected from the Islands he worked in, as well as in the Islands the ship passed on its way back and forth to Australia where the ship was stationed.

Davis returned to his home in Bexhill, Sussex in 1894, commissioning a local printer to publish a catalogue of his Pacific collection of just over seven hundred objects. Originally intending to sell the collection to a friend – who later declined to make the purchase – Davis found himself tasked with selling the collection in order to fund his retirement. He chose the firm Gerrard and Sons, a London based taxidermist and dealer, to sell the collection on his behalf. Gerrard and Sons was set up by Edward Gerrard in 1850 and run by his sons and brother as a taxidermists and furriers, remaining a family firm until its closure in 1967. Edward Gerrard had set up the firm in whilst employed in the Zoology department at the British Museum, continuing to work at the British Museum and hiring his son to run the new business. The sale of the Davis collection drew on both Gerrard and Sons’ and Davis’ networks of private collectors, and museum curators within the UK and Europe. Parts of the collection were purchased by private collectors James Edge-Partington, Harry Beasley and J F G Umlauff, and museums including the British Museum, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, and the Powell-Cotton. Currently the collection can be found in the Powell-Cotton, the Pitt-Rivers, the Horniman, the British Museum, MAA Cambridge, Liverpool World Museum, National Museums Scotland, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Otago Museum and Auckland Museum.

The initial visit in February to the Powell-Cotton has led to me attempting to track the dispersal of the Davis collection; photographing, cataloguing and hopefully exhibiting the various parts in their various locations. This blog entry discusses a few objects from the Davis collection and the visits I have made to the museums who act as custodians for this dispersed collection.

D73/1938 Copyright Ali Clark

The focus of the Powell-Cotton Davis collection appears to be body adornment, and their collection is rich in these type of objects particularly from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. 80% of the Davis objects purchased for the Powell-Cotton are made of animal parts fitting with Powell-Cotton’s interest in the natural world such as D73/1938, two polished sperm whale teeth from the Solomon Islands, hung on a plaited coconut fibre cord. Davis describes these objects as having been worn around the neck and would have been worn as valuables alongside other neck ornaments such as D63/1938, two clam shell neck ornaments that are missing their cords. In an article on whales teeth ornaments, Rhys Richards writes that Davis was collecting these valuables during ‘his punitive raids ‘to stamp out headhunting’ from coastal villages around Roviana Lagoon and at Munda’ (Richards 2006:11). Unusually the Richards article reveals research conducted at the Powell-Cotton highlighting their collection of Davis whales teeth and arguing that D73/1938 ‘is particularly interesting in having two pairs of tiny holes centrally placed…but also a single large hole at the gum end (seemingly made by a metal drill), so that it could have been hung horizontally or worn vertically’ (Richards 2006:11). The whales teeth at the Powell-Cotton are by no means ‘star’ objects, but what makes them more interesting is their ability, alongside other pieces of body adornment in the collection, and other items such as shell fish hooks, to demonstrate how people used their environment, and the social life and material culture of the region, as well as what was perceived as valuable or interesting by Davis.

D63/1938 Copyright Ali Clark

Subsequent research into the Davis collection revealed a rich archive of documents relating to the movements of the ship and Davis’ work in the Pacific, housed at the National Library of Australia, the Australian Maritime Museum and the National Archives at Kew. Research conducted in Australia in April also revealed a photo collection taken during the cruise of the Royalist by an unknown photographer. Copy collections are held at the Macleay Museum, Sydney and the British Museum, with the original album held at the Fiji Museum. Through these photographs we gather glimpses of the material culture being used, or worn by the people Davis often brought onto the ship. Further research needs to be done on these photographs but through them and the archives we can begin to contextualize the practice of collecting.

Oc1904,0621.29 Copyright Ali Clark

The next collections visit was to the British Museum, who have 141 objects from the Davis collection, 67 purchased via the Christy Collection, 41 purchased directly from Gerrard and Sons and 33 donated by the collector Harry Beasley. The British Museum were given first pick from the collection and chose many of the ‘masterpiece objects’ one of which is an incredibly intricate cuirass from Kiribati (Oc1904,0621.29). The armour is made from plaited lengths of coconut fibre placed on top of one another. Each one is then covered with two ply twisted coconut fibre cords and are secured in place by interlinking cord. The sides of cuirass have a waistband and the back has a knot of coconut fibre cord with human hair protruding from it. A panel of porcupine ray skin is fixed to the front and right side of the torso with coconut fibre. The head guard is decorated with two black lozenges of human hair, thought to represent dolphins with bands of hair as edging. Described in the Davis catalogue as no.495 ‘Sennet armour, breast covered fish skin, and helmet of fish skin. Gilbert Islands’. I believe the helmet he refers to to be Oc1904,0621.28. Based on reading the ships logs, held at the National Archives these two objects would have been collected between the 24^th of May 1892 and the 30^th of July 1892. This armor is also depicted in one of the photographs held at the Fiji Museum. There are two holes mid way down the front of the porcupine ray skin, and some damage in a patch further down to the left with one large perforation near the base of the cuirass perhaps made by weaponry; this same hole can be seen in the photograph.

Finally a few weeks ago I visited the Pacific collections at the Horniman. The Horniman has sixty-four objects from the Davis collection, two donated by Beasley, the rest purchased from Gerrard and Sons. Davis collected a variety of objects associated with life in the Pacific such as body adornment, clothing, fishing equipment, bags, weapons, musical instruments and tools. Many objects within his collection are associated with everyday life, however Davis also collected some ‘masterpiece’ objects, often described as ‘rare’ in his catalogue. Most of these are now in the British Museum, however some of these eye catching pieces are within the Horniman collection and include two beautifully carved fish hooks (30.49, 30.53), and one Kiribati body belt (30.40) made from porcupine ray skin that would have been worn with the armour described above.

30.49 Copyright Horniman Museum

The two bonito fish hooks from the Solomon Islands would have been used for fishing without bait, as the iridescent mother-of-pearl colour and the ‘glittering of the shank when moving, looked like little live fishes which the bonito tried to snap at’ (Mosher 1955: 186). What is different about these two fish hooks is that the shank of one (30.49) has been purposely carved out of pearl shell to resemble a bonito fish, whilst the other (30.53) has a fish carved from pearl shell wrapped onto the tortoise shell shank with coconut fibre binding. Through reference to their utilitarian purpose these objects become visually stunning. These objects also demonstrate the reliance on the sea for Solomon Islands society, as whilst being used for fishing they are also made of materials from the sea; turtle shell and pearl shell.

30.40 Copyright Horniman Museum

The belt is formed from two pieces of porcupine ray skin sewn together with human hair and coconut fibre cord. The ends of the skin are sewn onto wooden poles, which have been wrapped in hair and coconut fibre. A two-ply twisted coconut fibre cord is attached to these poles possibly to enable the wearer to pull the belt tighter. Described in the Davis catalogue as ‘498 Body belt of ray skin, very rare’ this belt would have been worn as armour, over a coconut fibre cuirass, accompanied by coconut fibre arm and leg coverings and a fish skin helmet. In his notes from Kiribati Davis writes that the Gilberts people have ‘sharks teeth spears and swords, also complete suits of armour made of rope from the coconut fibre. Occasionally fighting belts are worn over these made from the skin of the stingray’ (Davis The Proceedings of the HMS Royalist 1892). Pacific Presences is also currently conducting a survey of coconut fibre armour in UK museum collections. Initial research has demonstrated that coconut fibre armour is relatively common amongst museum collections from Kiribati, but these porcupine ray skin belts are much less common with only a few in the UK and Europe.

Collections’ such as Davis’ are complex relational assemblages and when looking at the Horniman’s Davis collection I can begin to see Davis’ large collection reform as similar objects begin to pop up and the collecting patterns of curators and collectors begin to emerge. A final example of this are the objects described by Davis as ‘Ingenious flying fish hook line and float, Onotoa, Gilbert Islands’. These objects are 606-609, 612 and 624 in his catalogue and are found in the British Museum (Oc1894,-.225-227 and Oc1980,Q.946), Horniman (30.37) and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (E 1904.47). Each float bears the handwritten inscription ‘Flying Fish Line, Onoatoa, Gilbert Ids’, most probably made by Davis, and the MAA object even has the Davis catalogue number 608 written next to this inscription. Whilst the objects were all provenanced to Davis in some way, the MAA object was not listed on the collections database as being collected Davis. It was through recognising the handwriting and the inscription from those objects in the British Museum and the Horniman that correct attribution could be given on the online database.

Oc1894,-.226 Copyright Ali Clark

MAA E1904.47 Copyright Ali Clark

30.37 Copyright Horniman Museum

The Horniman was the fifth museum to hold objects from the Davis collection that I have visited, and I have two more to visit in the UK over the coming months. By visiting these many museums begins to expose the ways in which museums and collectors in the UK and mainland Europe were engaging with the Pacific, and how these collections were being formed.

Ali Clark

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Partner Project with the British Museum

Posted on May 9, 2014 in Uncategorized

The British Museum, a Pacific Presences partner, is investigating its own collection of Kiribati coconut fibre armour and is compiling a survey of Kiribati armour held in other UK Museums. These distinctive Micronesian artefacts are known to feature in many UK museum collections and information which would help build a comprehensive, contemporary picture of their UK museum presence would be very helpful.

Any information members may be able to provide would be welcomed, but if you are able to include details such as images, museum reference numbers, acquisition year and collector name, or other ethnographic information about these artefacts it would be much appreciated.

Click here for details of how you and your museum can be involved.

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Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums

Posted on April 1, 2014 in Uncategorized

A big thanks to all who attended last week’s Pacific Presences conference at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was an incredibly fruitful event that was part of a week long series of events for the project, who were hosting the Oceania (2018) exhibition advisory committee, all of whom are based in the Pacific. A montage of photos of the week can be seen below;

l-r Michael Mel performs at the Tapa exhibit opening, Tina Rehuher-Marugg in the stores with Rachel Hand, Michael Mel and RA curator Adrian Locke discuss architecture, Francois Wadra and PP team member Julie Adams at the reception at NZ House, Megan Tamati-Quennell ‘unsettling the line’ at the conference, and the conference day end panel with Nick Thomas, Anita Herle, Maile Andrade, Francois Wadra and Lissant Bolton.

Eve Haddow of the Pacific Collections Review project based at National Museums Scotland has kindly written a review of the conference, which can be found here.

With thanks from the Pacific Presences Team!

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Reviewing MAA’s Micronesian Collection

Posted on March 31, 2014 in Micronesia

In March 2014 the project was lucky to have Remke van der Velden as an intern. Remke had previously worked as a collections assistant at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, the following describes her month long project:

During the month of March I was in the fortunate position to document and photograph most of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s Micronesian collection as part of the Pacific Presences Project. A relatively small collection, it comprises around 250 objects from Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Islands. It has been an exciting process engaging with the objects from this under-researched area of the Pacific. What has struck me most of all going through the collection is the craftsmanship and artistry with which many of these objects have been designed. Working with often very delicate materials such as shell, turtle shell and plant fibres requires immense skill, and patience!

1954.62
Tray, Palau

The research also, unexpectedly, offered up interesting parallels with work I have previously undertaken on the MAA’s African Collections as part of the Origins of the Afro Comb exhibition held at the Fitzwilliam Museum last year. Some of the forms and materials used in the design of these objects for example are remarkably similar to pieces from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. This probably says more about the functionality of the object and shared characteristic of hair type than the existence of any cross-cultural relations between the two groups.

1954.66 C
Comb, Yap, Caroline Islands

1948.2339 B
Comb, Rwanda or Democratic Republic of Congo

Though I was always taught as a little girl that favouritism is to be avoided, I have to say that the very small collection of items from Nauru has bypassed that principle. My absolute favourite piece, possibly fed by my own interest in creating beaded jewellery, is a small headband consisting of two different types of seeds, one brown and the other blue, strung on a cotton cord with a black elastic (possibly not original) back strap. It’s the vibrancy of the blue that struck me, as well as the intricate pattern in which the seeds are woven together. It is understated in its use of material but manages to have great impact nevertheless.

Z 46477
Headband, Nauru

Finally, one of the highlights of working on the project has been the opportunity to exchange knowledge with curators and artists from Micronesia (and the Pacific in general) during their weeklong visit as part of the Conference on Oceanic Art and European Museums. It further informed the research and I am very grateful to the Pacific Presences Team for providing me with the opportunity to participate in the Project!

Remke van der Velden

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Reaching for the ‘Snow Mountains’ of Dutch New Guinea, 1912-1913

Posted on March 7, 2014 in West Papua

Dr Elizabeth Blake has been working as an affiliated researcher on the project, using her expertise on sound and music in archaeological contexts to shed light on the anthropological collections made by A F R Wollaston in Dutch New Guinea (present day West Papua). Her research will culminate in a small exhibition at MAA next year, but in the meantime she has catalogued some of Wollaston’s photographs and created this photo essay which gives a fascinating insight into his encounters with the local people and the landscape.

On 23 June 1912 Alexander F.R. Wollaston was in Singapore making final arrangements for the second British Ornithologists’ expedition to Dutch New Guinea (West Papua). Their goal was to reach the glaciers of Mount Carstensz by navigating up and along the Utakwa River, collecting plant and animal specimens and documenting their encounters with people. With great anticipation, on 16 September 1912 Wollaston and his colleagues, together with a sizable team including seventy-four Dayaks recruited from Borneo, arrived near the mouth of the Utakwa on a ‘beastly’ boat called the Valk. Over the course of six months, their journey to the ‘Snow Mountains’ was filled with a wealth of experiences, through which they assembled a panoply of socially significant objects from the Papuans they met in the coastal and mountain areas. Wollaston’s album from this expedition is here at the MAA and has recently been digitised as part of the Pacific Presences project. The album, containing 90 photographs, can be viewed alongside his accounts of their journey in the ‘Letters and Diaries of A. F. R. Wollaston (Wollaston, 1933). These images captured the striking beauty of both the landscapes that they travelled through and the people that they met along the way.

To see details of the recent publication, Letters and Diaries F R Wollaston, click here

Mr Alexander F.R. Wollaston

Mr C. Boden Kloss

Lieutenant A. Van de Water

The S.S. Valk anchored in the Utakwa (Wollaston 1933: 122)
“September 16. Anchored about 8 miles south of the Utakwa…got off only to find 14 feet [of water] and the tide falling rapidly. Had to go back again for the rest of the day and thought it was a great pity to waste time like this, but was somewhat rewarded by a fine view of the snows of Carstensz at sunset.”

Base Camp (Wollaston 1933: 123)
“September 19…Busy making camp and clearing ground. Find the Dayaks don’t like the tents we have got for them so they have made houses of their own kind roofed with pandanus. I gave them two days to do it and they have made a very good job of it. They are really very jolly fellows and I like them immensely—and I think they like me which is all to the good.”

Visitors arriving at Base Camp

Up the Utakwa in Dayak canoes

The ‘Canoe Camp’ (Wollaston 1933: 135)
“December 14-18. Up the river again and spent three days at No. 3 Camp, building ourselves a house of palm leaves and generally making camp good. Afterwards left this camp and made our way towards the mountains. We took with us two or three hill Papuans and they were very useful in showing us a track. Made good progress.”

Cooking outside of a house in the mountains (Wollaston 1933: 137)
“December 21…It was the first native house we had seen, for all those we have hitherto seen had been merely wayside shelters—not permanent houses. This one, typical of those seen afterwards, was built on piles about 6 feet from the ground and about 10 feet square; entrance by sloping planks or logs to an outside platform leading to a square room, in the middle of which there was a fireplace. Outside the house were a number of men, women and children, mostly occupied in preparing a very savour-smelling feast of sweet potatoes, yams and pig flesh.”

Greetings and gifts (Wollaston 1933:138-139)
“December 22…Following the ridge and passing a sort of rude fence across the path, we found ourselves on a levelled platform about the size of a lawn tennis court; ground quite hard and dry. Here were about sixty or seventy people of all ages and sizes, who set up the most extraordinary barking when we appeared, dancing and prancing and waving their bow and arrows.
Some came and shook hands, or rather pulled knuckles with us. You hold out the bent knuckle of your middle right finger, while the other person grips it between the bent first and second fingers of his right hand; then you both pull until your hand comes away and the other one’s two knuckles come together with a click. This was repeated three or four times, accompanied by a ‘Wah’ or other ejaculation. We were then told to stand with our party at one end of the platform while all the natives belonging to the place stood at the other. A man, a sort of boss among them, ordered silence, and then began a long harangue. In one hand he held a rough iron axe, in the other two white leaves, and towards the end of his speech a lean white pig was brought in from the back of the crowd and I was instructed to go forward and receive it, which I did…We gave them a small present, and then were told that we might proceed through the country of these mountain natives.”

A hot sulphur spring at 6,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 142)
“January 24…They talked a great deal about ‘piu’, i.e. salt and asked us to go with them to see the ‘salt place’. We went, and after going through a great deal of bush came, not to a deposit of salt as we had expected, but to a warm sulphur spring; milky white water, gently steaming, 94 F…The man and woman with us took stems of the long grass that grows near the pool and proceeded to suck up the water as through straws. They drank a great deal and appeared to like it, but we tasted the stuff and found it very nasty.”

Camp No. 11, 8,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 143)
“January 27. To-day we started by wading through very cold streams, then went steeply uphill where the character of the country changed rapidly. River widened, trees became smaller and less dense. Casuarinas and coniferous-looking trees, flowers much more numerous: orchids, a sort of meadowsweet, a rose-like bush and many others…Camped beside a boulder in the middle of the river bed; not a safe place if it rained heavily but fortunately it did not.”

Disappointment at 14,866 feet…(Wollaston 1933: 146-147)
“February 1…There is apparently no easy snow way up to the ridge from here. If we had been three men accustomed to ice we could have gone up, but it was not to be thought of…Nothing for it but to turn back…By getting to the snow we have accomplished nothing of any value whatever, whereas if we had gone a few hundred feet higher and had seen beyond, what might we not have seen? Further and further ridges? This prize was withheld—and nobody knows.”

The snow and ice of Mount Carstensz

Drums from the coast

Sago bowls

Wooden and stone clubs

Carved ceremonial ‘tablets’

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Zurich, November 2013

Posted on February 19, 2014 in Uncategorized

After our time in Munich in November, Julie, Elena, Mark and myself took a train through the mountains and across the border into Zurich – a spectacularly scenic journey! There we were enthusiastically received by Andreas Isler and Katharina Haslwanter who look after the Pacific collections at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich (VMZ). The museum is currently closed for refurbishment but we were given us a ‘hard-hat’ tour of the building site and Andreas talked us through the extensive renovations which will allow for exciting new permanent displays and temporary exhibition spaces. Curators will certainly have an opportunity to do exciting things with the ethnography collections here – this is one to watch! Zurich is such a major centre on the international contemporary art scene, it will be interesting to see how they embed the narrative of world ethnography collections into the city’s long-standing dialogue with art.

Elena, Mark, Julie, Andres and Katharina. Photo Maia Nuku.

Elena, Mark, Julie, Andreas and Katharina. Photo Maia Nuku.

Next morning we returned to work through the collections. Once again Elena was guiding us towards a specific collection of artefacts associated with Johann Caspar Horner, astronomer on Krusenstern’s expedition (1803-06). The museum has 2,600 Pacific artefacts in its collections and Julie & I were keen to begin working with the Micronesian collections. Once again Mark Adams was keen to size up some potential shots of the museum environment and was particularly taken with the exterior of the ‘bunker’ where the collections are stored. As with so many university collections which date to the late eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries, the museum is set in the grounds of botanical gardens and we toured the gardens which were quite spectacular in the fading splendour of late autumn light.

Our hosts felt we should also take the opportunity to visit the Pacific collections which are displayed in the fabulous Rietberg Museum and helped us navigate the city tram through icy streets to the historic Villa Wesendonck, south of the city centre. Owned by a wealthy silk merchant, Otto Wesendonck was a great admirer of Wagner and placed the villa at the composer’s disposal when he visited Zurich in 1852. We walked in through the grand entrance hall and ascended the staircase: totally breathtaking as you soak up the light and glistening polish of marble which drapes over every surface. Stepping into the first gallery, the first two rooms are devoted to Oceanic arts which was startling and uplifting at the same time. Mark Adams lingered in the first room taking shots of a wonderful tauihu and carved pou and we nodded at each other – no words needed to explain just how strange and enlightening it can be to encounter taonga maori in a context so far removed from home.

Pacific objects. Photo Maia Nuku.

We were lucky to catch a major exhibition: Art in dialogue: Europe & Persia (27 Sept 2013 – 12 January 2014) during our visit which fused history, science & art in a bold display featuring early manuscripts and cartography, ceramics, prints & paintings, applied arts & strongly politicised contemporary works. Tearing ourselves away at closing time, we came outside & prepared to head back into the city when it began to snow: pure magic. Umbrellas held high, our feet crunched underfoot as we explored the streets of Zurich. Art & creativity is everywhere in this city: I spied off-beat art installations in hidden walkways, artful window displays and elegant street lighting – all a visual feast for the eyes. Zurich is also famously the birthplace of Dada of course so when we inadvertently passed Cabaret Voltaire, Mark shrieked with delight & we took some time out to descend into the basement where he spent a few quiet moments paying silent tribute.

Mark. Photo Maia Nuku.

After warming up with a glass of warm gluhwein, the decision was taken by our hosts that we ought to be educated in the fine art of fondue eating! Washed down with a glass of local kirsch it was quite the best way to finish a perfect Swiss day.

Maia Nuku

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Project visit to Munich in November 2013

Posted on February 13, 2014 in Uncategorized

Volkenkunde Munich. Photo Maia Nuku.

One of the highlights of last year was our research trip to the Staatliches Museum fur Volkenkunde in Munich where Michaela Appel, curator of Indonesian and Oceanian collections, hosted us for two days in the museum stores (18-19 November 2013). Continuing our itinerary of visits to major European museums to investigate Oceanic collections, we were joined by our project colleagues, photographer and artist Mark Adams visiting from New Zealand and Elena Govor who had scheduled a visit through Europe at the end of a research trip to Russia in order to continue investigations into the whereabouts of Marquesan artefacts collected by members of Krusenstern’s voyage to the Pacific (1803-6). Two years ago we visited Tallin and Tartu together where we documented artefacts acquired by crew members of the Russian-commissioned vessels, specifically Baltic Germans who were on board Krusenstern’s expedition and Elena’s idea was to build on this further. Curator Michaela Appel has researched and published on the Krusenstern voyage artefacts currently in the collections in Munich and was happy to collaborate further, organising for Elena to have full access to the museum’s archives including the registers and inventories which document the original transfer of items into the museum. This is providing the kind of detail Elena requires to fine tune the profiling of individual collectors within the expedition as a whole.

At lunch we took the opportunity to visit the museum’s wonderful permanent galleries and were able to reconnect with colleague Hilke Thode-Arora who was flat out finalising details for her forthcoming exhibition: ‘From Samoa with Love’. The exhibition presents Samoan ethnography, photographs and archives associated with German brothers Fritz and Carl Marquardt who organised for travelling groups from Samoa to visit Germany between 1895 and 1911. The exhibition is now open (31^st Jan – 5^th October 2014) and was reported in the Samoan press with very positive reviews. Tackling sensitive and complex issues, the Samoa Observer reported that the exhibition “asks deep questions about the attitudes of the time towards travelling cultural groups that toured Europe extensively at the time” (Samoa Observer, Wednesday 29^th January 2014). Hilke explained that a component of the exhibition will travel later this year to Pataka Art+Museum in Porirua, Wellington NZ where she hopes members of the Samoan community will be able to engage closely with photographs and archives and continue to move the dialogue enabled by the exhibition forward.

Maia Nuku, Julie Adams, Elena Govor, Mark Adams and Michaela Appel. Photo Maia Nuku.

Returning to the stores Julie and I began to work through some of the museum’s Micronesian collections which are absolutely superb. Inspired by the impressive façade of the building, Mark Adams meanwhile was loading film and preparing to take his Deardorff camera outside to set up a long exposure shot before the light faded. Always with an eye out for vintage camera equipment, Mark was quick to spot an old camera tucked in amongst the artefacts on one of the open shelf storage in the stores! Enquiring about it, Michaela explained that it was a Gaumont Stereo Spido Ordinaire (8.5 x 17 inch) and that it had belonged to her grandfather Otto Hongimann who had travelled to Kashmir, Ladakh and Baltistan in 1911-12 on an expedition to the region.

Expedition book. Photo Maia Nuku

Very soon the two were lost in discussion, holding plates up to the light, comparing and discussing the various qualities one might achieve in the print. The beautiful sepia print photographs Hongimann produced, along with excerpts from his letters and personal archive, have been collated into a wonderful large-format book but it was quite something of course to encounter the camera itself with all its accessories, laid out alongside the museum’s ethnography collections.

Mark Adams & Michaela Appel. Photo Maia Nuku.

They certainly have strong personalities these marvellous grandes dames of the camera world and Mark thrives on experimenting with their manual technology. He showed us how the camera would have operated – sliding and clicking the various mechanisms to demonstrate how one might load film to produce specific effects. Mark is producing a series of works for our project which document and interpret our collaborative work in European museums. As well as giving us insight into our own research process, his photographs capture the subtleties and specifics of the unique museum environments in which we work. Inspired by the architectural façade of the museum, galleries and storehouses in which Oceanic collections are housed, exhibited and displayed, Mark’s photographs take us further … incredibly he manages to distil something of the unique atmosphere of these places into something tangible, something you can hold in your hand, which gives you an opportunity to focus, reflect upon and appreciate precisely what it is that you are doing there yourself.

The Deardorff. Photo Maia Nuku.

Maia Nuku

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Made in Oceania, the team visit Cologne

Posted on February 7, 2014 in Uncategorized

In January 2014 the team went to Cologne to attend the Made in Oceania Symposium hosted by the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum. The symposium was run in association with their temporary exhibition of the same name, which features barkcloth from a number of museums including MAA.

Tapa from MAA in the exhibition. Photo Julie Adams.

The symposium, which was held over two days, explored the cultural meanings of tapa and its material quality, the conservation concerns of tapa for museum professionals, and the use of contemporary tapa. Speakers were museum curators, researchers and conservators from across the world. The variety of papers highlighted the breadth of bark cloth production not just within Oceania but across the world, as demonstrated by Mark Nesbitt’s paper which discussed ‘the tapa belt’. The large and visually stunning exhibition entitled ‘Made in Oceania; Tapa, Art and Social Landscapes’ gives a historical introduction to the collection of tapa, discusses its use as a backdrop within colonial portrait photography, looks at the differences in its production and decoration in Melanesia and Polynesia, and culminated with its use in contemporary art.

The old museum site. Photo Julie Adams.

The museum as a whole opened in 1906 and houses the collection of Wilhelm Joest, a gentleman explorer who collected around 3,500 objects from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. After his death in 1897 in Melanesia, his collection was left to his sister Adele Rautenstrauch. Rautenstrauch used Joest’s collection to form the basis for the new museum, which today comprises over 60,000 objects from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. In 2010 the museum moved to its current location on the Cäcilienstraße in the centre of Cologne. The new space displays its collections thematically within the construct ‘People and their Worlds’. It explores common themes experienced by people all over the world and concentrates on how they address them within that specific region. This comparative approach aims to present all cultures as equal. This new space draws on a multitude of advancements in museum technology to display its collections and these advancements are exemplified through the displays on the first floor in the section entitled ‘a matter of perception and opinion: art’. The space exhibits ‘masterpiece’ objects in glass cases with low lighting in the gallery space. When the visitor approaches the case they can touch a pad and the case will light up revealing photography and text to contextualize the object on view. The display is referencing how objects are often exhibited as either art or anthropology.

A matter of perception and opinion: art, before the light. Photo Julie Adams.

A matter of perception and opinion: art, with the light. Photo Julie Adams.

In addition the gallery before this takes all of the objects in the Museum’s Massim collection and displays them. Spears and clubs are displayed typographically, with their museum numbers across the walls from floor to ceiling whilst a deconstructed house hangs from the ceiling amongst these objects. The cases in the centre of this gallery offer the visitor photographs, text, smaller objects and even reproductions of the museum catalogue cards. All in all, a very engaging, innovative and exciting museum.

The Massim displays. Photo Julie Adams.

After the symposium Julie and Ali remained in Cologne to visit the museum’s Micronesian collections. The majority of collections not on display are still housed at the Museum’s old site at Ubeirring, a short tram ride from the city centre. We were hosted by curator Burkhard Fenner and had asked to view objects specifically from Palau and Nauru. We photographed approximately 70 objects in one day and of particular interest during the visit were the knives labelled as ‘women’s weapons’ perhaps due to their size, the banana fibre skirts and the woven child’s hats which will be exploring further in a visit to the British Museum’s Micronesian collections.

‘women’s weapons’. Photo Julie Adams.

Skirt. Photo Julie Adams.

The visit to Cologne really demonstrated the work of the project over the past year, as we are now able to draw comparisons between collections and show the curators we visit comparable objects and collections in other museums, giving us and them a sense of the networks these objects were and are a part of.

Ali Clark

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