by Jim Elmslie Oceanic art creates fascination on many levels. In this edition of the OAS Journal we look at two quite different ways of seeing traditional artefacts. To Dr. Michael Mel, a Papua New Guinean scholar who grew up in a Highlands village before setting off on his own personal odyssey, they are the […]
The Social Life of Aboriginal Breastplates: Encoded Objects of Colonisation
By Angel Bottaro The preservation of Aboriginal breastplates, with a degree of empathetic imagination, evoke powerful stories of colonisation. The physical weight of the objects around one’s neck and the ascriptions given to them – gorgets, brass shields, but most commonly ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ plates – made them highly charged and politicised objects from the […]
SAWIYANO: Life in the East Sepik Province
Betni Kalk is a professor of Design at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. As the daughter of missionaries, Betni grew up in the East Sepik Province in Sawiyano territory. She returned as a college student and later asked permission from the elders to film their lives, with them deciding which aspects of their lives to […]
Aesthetics of New Guinea Art
Lecture by Michael Hamson, Savage Club, Melbourne, 21 October 2017 Introduction Aesthetics by definition are subjective — being one’s response to and appreciation of beauty. That subjective dimension becomes even more pronounced when discussing artifacts made by another culture where beauty may not have been a facture when producing the object or a facture important […]
Interview: Dr. Michael Mel
Jim Elmslie talks with the West Pacific Collection Manager from the Australian Museum about his life and the concept he has developed of museums being a Ples Namel– or middle place, between different peoples, cultures and objects. JE Michael you have had a long and interesting journey from the highlands of Papua New Guinea to […]