Oceanic Art Society

Promoting the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.

Stories from all OAS Journal Volumes

Life in a Museum, Papua New Guinea style

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Grace Vele, a/Chief Curator Anthropology, PNG National Museum and Art Gallery The Papua New Guinea (PNG) National Museum and Art Gallery [NMAG] is a world of its own with multiple surprises on offer every time an object is held in your hands; it tells its own story. I never dreamt that I would work in […]

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Kevin Conru, Oceanic art collector

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Interviewed by Bill Rathmell in Brussels, May 2022 BR: In 2003 you were interviewed by Tribalmania in Santa Fe (https://www.tribalmania.com/interviewconru.html) where you described your early career playing professionally in symphony orchestras and how you moved to London, did an MBA in Arts Policy Administration for Museums and started a department of African Art, Tribal Art and […]

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Bruce Laurie Seaman (1926 – 2022)

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by Chris Boylan Bruce in Papua Guinea, late 1960s. Bruce Seaman will be remembered as a great family man, married to his beautiful Tahitian wife, Ramine, for 61 years, and as a Voyager and collector of Oceanic art. Over his lifetime, Bruce collected Oceanic objects, a collection he did not promote; only close relationships had […]

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Carnets Kanak, Voyage en Inventaire de Roger Boulay – Musée Hèbre, Rochefort

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by Pierre Laffont As a local precursor to a similar exhibition being hosted later this year in Paris at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques-Chirac, the exhibition Kanak Notebooks, Journey in Inventory by Roger Boulay was shown at the Musée Hèbre in Rochefort, France until 4 June. This exhibition was an adaptation by the local regional […]

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Hongi’s Hikoi: Tales through Tāonga

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18 June 2022 – Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney. Review by Margaret Cassidy A highly successful project launch of Hongi’s Hikoi: Tales through Tāonga was held at the Chau Chak Wing Museum after a two year delay due to the pandemic. Organised by Māori historian and educator Brent Kerehona Pukepuke-Ahitapu, it was a moving cultural […]

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Mariw Minaral (Spiritual Patterns)

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Australian National Maritime Museum. Review by Margaret Cassidy Ngay, Alick Tipoti 2009. Linocut and handcoloured print on paper. ANMM Collection 00055474. In recent years the Australian National Maritime Museum has used its Indigenous maritime curatorial team to build what some are regarding as the nation’s pre-eminent collection of contemporary art from Zenadth Kes or the […]

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Marquesan Festival Matavaa O Te Fenua Enata

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July 2022. By Chris Boylan and Sophy Dennett The Marquesas with six main islands in the north-eastern section of French Polynesia has long been a place of imaginings, beyond the relative sophistication of Tahiti. Attending the Marquesan festival on Fatu Hiva, the most southerly and least visited of all the Marquesan islands delivered a reality […]

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Uli: Powerful Ancestors from the Pacific

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2021, 392 pages, Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, Primedia, Bornival, Belgium. Review by Noelle Rathmell-Stiels  This superb book has been six years in the making, but it is well worth the wait. In it, Jean-Philippe Beaulieu presents a catalogue raisonné of all the known New Ireland Uli ancestor statues, extant and lost – 231 examples in all; most of them lavishly illustrated. […]

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