This edition of the Journal includes articles about the early encounters between European missionaries and Aboriginal Australians in Central Australia and European anthropologists and people from the Torres Strait and […]
Sydney Oceanic Art Fair – SAOF 2021
by Bill Rathmell The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions lifted in Sydney in time for SOAF 2021 to be held, complete with masks and vaccination checks at the National Art School on Saturday 6 November. The crowd seemed very happy to be seeing objects and art in the real – as opposed to in a digital format! […]
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When plastic becomes sacred, George Nuku’s Bottled Ocean project
By Garance Nyssen On 14 July 2019, in the port district of the Gabut in La Rochelle, south-western France, George Nuku was hurrying to finish a large whale made from transparent green, blue and red bottoms of plastic bottles[1]. Children had been making jellyfish all afternoon with the help of Nuku and Mathilde, his spouse, […]
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Hermannsburg: the Barossa Connection
By Sally Goers Fox This recent exhibition in the Barossa Regional Gallery in Tanunda, South Australia highlights the longstanding relationships and reciprocity between the Barossa Valley and the Hermannsburg/Ntaria community of Central Australia.[1] It is a tangible representation: revealing to the community not only the art which has stemmed from the Hermannsburg school of watercolour […]
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Pacific artists respond to Matisse
Matisse Alive exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales 23 Oct 2021 – 3 April 2022 Review by Margaret Cassidy Artist projects from around and across the Pacific, including significant collaborative projects by Pacific Islander artists form a significant part of the contemporary response to work of Henri Matisse in the Art Gallery […]
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Recording Kastom: Alfred Haddon’s Journals from the Torres Strait and New Guinea, 1888 and 1898
2020, 378 pages, Edited by Anita Herle and Jude Philp. In association with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Sydney University Press. Review by Crispin Howarth Alfred Cort Haddon is something of a founding father for modern anthropology. His fieldwork resulting from scientific expeditions to New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands […]
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The Agile Art World
Being agile and pivoting are words long associated with innovation and the tech world. However, they are now commonly being used in the art world to describe the quick responses […]
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 woven into the fabric of the culture with their origins dating back through countless generations, yet they are still being made and they are extraordinary. […]
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Man Who Cannot Die – Phantom Shields of the New Guinea Highlands – Book launch talk
Chris Boylan These shields are from the New Guinea Highlands and a major feature is their colour. This is very much part of the New Guinea tradition to have colourful shields so that when the warriors are out fighting in the hills and the valleys the shields stand out very strongly from the landscape. These […]
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Man Who Cannot Die – Phantom Shields of the New Guinea Highlands
2021, 296 pages, Edited by Jonathan Fogel, with contributions from Chris Boylan, Bruce Cree, Hubert Langmann, Kevin Patrick, and Jessica Lindsey Phillips. Sydney & Toronto: Boylan and Phillips. Reviewed by Noelle Rathmell-Stiels Published just weeks after the comic book superhero, The Phantom, celebrated his 85th birthday, this new book will appeal to everyone interested in a unique […]
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