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Welcome to the 14th year of The Oceanic Art Society

2009 should be a great year for OAS. We return to our original home at The Australian Museum as the venue for our Sydney Meetings and the Australian Museum will also host our third annual OAS Weekend Forum in October - likely to be our biggest event ever. We also intend to hold our first meeting in Melbourne for many years later in 2009. Membership Fees are virtually our sole source of income, so if you have already paid your membership fee, thank you. And if you have not yet paid, rejoin now and support a strong and active voice for Oceanic Art. (Membership form on the website, pay by paypal!)

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Three cheers for an Australian Head of State who appreciates Pacific Art!

Her Excellency, Ms Quentin Bryce, AC, Governor-General of Australia photographed with members of the Oceanic Art Society who attended the official opening of the exciting Vaka Moana exhibition from Auckland Musuem, Tamaki Paenga Hira, at the Australia. Maritime Museum Sydney. In opening the exhibition, Her Exellency said: When Europeans first voyaged into what they called the new world, their meetings with island elders were strange and strained, foreshadowing much sorrow and a long pilgrimage to peace". She also noted that the Pacific peoples who colonized Oceania had made "vivid and complex journeys across the frontier of the Pacific; each with their own technologies, arts, objects and civilizations" and concluded that "This exhibition illuminates those journeys and their tracks across the ocean, rediscovering and celebrating what might otherwise have drifted from us on the tide… While we harbour it, it speaks to our present journey as an island nation, our contemporary exploration of our identity and place".

Members representing OAS at the opening, l to r: Mary-Louise Williams, Director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, Helen Dennett, Paul Dennett, Her Excellency the Governor General, David Said, Geoff Carey and Jerry Liew. Photo: Michelle Haywood.