Mutuaga and the Kwato Mission
Mutuaga, a master carver from Papua New Guinea, gained recognition through the Kwato Mission and established trade routes, fostering the promotion of his art and cultural identity.
OAC Journal Research Articles
Living Archives: The F.E. Williams Collection and PNG’s 50th Independence Anniversary
September 16, 2024, marked the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australian administration. To commemorate this milestone, the National Archives of Australia embarked on multiple projects connecting our collections to PNG communities both in Australia and overseas.
Tiki in Architecture
Carved anthropomorphic figures of Pacific Oceania are known by the general term of tiki. Their place in protohistoric architecture was first recorded in the accounts of explorers, scientific observers and missionaries between 1769 and the 1800s, as new belief systems were being superimposed on island cultures.
Nawian: a creative experience
by Yatha Baram and Nicolas Garnier The large artwork Nawian acquired in June 2025 by the National Gallery of Australia is part of a broad project at the crossroad between …
Flight of the Tiki: Mapping Tiki across Pacific Islands settlement
by Judy Robinson Every voyager harbours a sense of home. In island cultures throughout Polynesia, there exists a spiritual homeland conceptualised as Hawaiki; “to get to the core of a culture, one …
Identifying two previously unattributed Mutuaga spatulas
by Stéphane Duckett Historically the world of tribal art collecting all too often has shown a lack of concern over identifying the authors of the works they collect or trade …
50 years on – Contemporary Art in Papua New Guinea
by Susan Cochrane As Papua New Guinea approaches its 50th anniversary of Independence on 16 September 2025, it is timely to widen the dialogue between Papua New Guinea’s artists and …
A Curious Portrait Carving Attributed to the Kiwai Area
by David Ferguson This article introduces a curious ‘in the round’ portrait carving of a European gentleman with carving conventions consistent to that of the Kiwai area; this novel carving …
Art and Creativity from a Cross-Cultural Perspective
This article is an edited version of a talk Ross Bowden gave at the Oceanic Art Society Forum in Melbourne in 2023. The purpose is to raise, very briefly, some of the ‘big picture’ questions about art cross-culturally.
Tiki Collecting: Production, Purpose and Scale
What is tiki? This exotic word conjures vivid and iconic images. In discussing tiki, questions of production, purpose and scale emerge.
Somuk: The First Modern Artist of the Pacific?
by Nicolas Garnier Biographies of Pacific artists usually focus on contemporary artists and artists coming from wealthy Pacific countries, especially Australia. Scholars or museum curators have devoted substantial biographies to …
Some thoughts about the Awaiama Stone Spatula
by Stéphane Duckett Stone artefacts in Oceanic Art are relatively uncommon and almost wholly limited to axe or club heads. It is perhaps not surprising that in the Massim area, …
More Than You Might Think: Exploring Micronesian Sculpture
by Eric Kjellgren In contrast to the rich diversity of sculptural traditions in other areas of Oceania, surveys of Oceanic Art (including Kjellgren 2007 and 2014) often describe Micronesia as …
Shield shifts: redefining provenance in north-eastern Australia
By Philip Jones ‘Provenance’ is a flexible term. Its meaning and its relevance may shift from one context or another. In the art and artefact market it usually refers to …
Representation and misrepresentation in ethnographic film: the case of Cannibal Tours — Part II
by Ross Bowden The documentary Cannibal Tours, by the self-described ‘existential anarchist’ Australian film maker Dennis O’Rourke, has had a significant impact on the anthropological world since it was released almost …
Representation and misrepresentation in ethnographic film: the case of Cannibal Tours[1]
by Ross Bowden The documentary Cannibal Tours, by the self-described ‘existential anarchist’ Australian film maker Dennis O’Rourke (Lutkehaus and O’Rourke 1989:435), has had a significant impact on the anthropological world since …
The Ainu “Bear-Sending” Ceremony
by Krisztina Turza The Ainu (meaning ‘human’ in their native language) are Japan’s oldest indigenous people, and they have survived and maintained their culture from the Late Palaeolithic period through …
Massim canoes in the Milne Bay Province,Papua New Guinea
by David Payne The traditional canoes of the Massim region of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are colourful, stylish, and sophisticated. These traditional wooden canoes are …
Solomon Islands carved coconut used in the practice of teeth blackening
Clémentine Débrosse In 1568, Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira was the first European to visit the Archipelago now known as the Solomon Islands. At the time, Mendaña y Neira was …
An Important Addition to the Sculptures Known to be from the Kiwai area
by David Ferguson This article describes a remarkable and previously undocumented female ancestral sculpture carved in the round in a fully conceived naturalistic style (Fig.1) which appears most closely related …
Beyond bridge and barrier: Torres Strait and curious artefact distributions between Queensland and New Guinea
By Professor Ian J. McNiven, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Melbourne During the nineteenth century Europeans became increasingly aware of …
A Canoe Named Ealamai’iea, or Patience ©
By John Greenshields of Adelaide, South Australia I took this photo of Joseph Ayodila at the Milne Bay Canoe and Drum Festival on Alotau, Papua New Guinea, in 2014. I …
Mugus – the terrible blind god, the lord of pigs – a unique sculpture from Papua New Guinea
By Crispin Howarth, Curator, Pacific Arts, National Gallery of Australia Since the mid-1920s, this masterpiece of Oceanic sculpture with its gently twisting elongated torso, oversized hands and stout powerful legs …
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor – Part VII
by Barry Craig. Continued from OAS OAS Journal Vol.22 No.3. In this issue of the OAS Journal, I provide more details of Harry’s service with the AN&MEF and a sample …