Image Caption: Speakers at the 2023 OAS Forum in Melbourne. Image: Margaret Cassidy.
Australian members have experienced a rich range of Oceanic Art experiences in recent months. A major highlight was the 2023 OAS Forum held in Melbourne in October. Future editions of this Journal will feature articles from a number of distinguished Australian and international experts at the Forum.
Forum attendees early to register were treated to a tour of Museum Victoria’s storage facilities before some international and interstate visitors availed themselves of privately arranged tours of the leading private Oceanic Art galleries.
Featured in this edition of the Journal is the second part of Ross Bowden’s case for misrepresentation in the ethnographic film Cannibal Tours, widely regarded as a ‘classic’ in the field of visual anthropology, especially in the sub-field of the ethnography of tourism.
A review of the Tidal Kin: Stories from the Pacific exhibition at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney reveals the key role played by the port of Sydney hosting a fascinating number of tourists and visitors from across the Pacific Islands during the 18th and 19th century. The Sydney Oceanic Art Fair continues this tradition of trading for artists and collectors.
Ross Bowden has been a prolific writer and researcher in recent years with Bill Rathmell reviewing his recently published Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society: The Kwoma in Cross Cultural Perspective.
Sadly, this edition also includes an obituary for Joost Daalder.
North American members have a number of opportunities to see the Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Australian Bark Paintings from Yirrkala organised by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in partnership with the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala. Noëlle Rathmell-Stiels has reviewed the exhibition catalogue.
I was very fortunate to see the first survey exhibition of Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira in Adelaide recently; don’t miss it either there or in Canberra next year.
Margaret Cassidy
