Image caption: Joel Sam’s exhibition Exodus at Cairns Art Gallery. More information page 12. Courtesy Cairns Art Gallery. Photographer: Michael Marzik.
This edition of the Journal continues to share the rich information received at the highly successful 2022 OAS Forum held in the Pacific Galleries at the South Australian Museum. Tolai woman and longtime South Australian resident art dealer and collector Neriba Gallasch shares some of her passion for the art of the Torres Strait Islands with glimpses of some of her favourites. She looks for the artists whose works are different and whose work will hopefully last.
Published across this and the next edition of the Journal is the original research of well-known anthropologist Ross Bowden who has put the 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.
Bilas: Body Adornment of Papua New Guinea is now on show at the Australian Museum. The Acknowledgement of Cultural Objects and Ancestral Spirits at the Museum was delivered by Tolai man and Associate Curator Steven Gagau while preparing the exhibition. Also published is the launch speech by Dr Michael Mel, Co-Curator of the exhibition, who is from Kilipika Village, Mt Hagen, Western Highlands.
Crispin Howarth has reviewed Kevin Conru’s luscious new book Polynesia. Kevin Conru is an international speaker at the OAS Forum in Melbourne in October.
A review of the Camp Paradise exhibition at the Powerhouse demonstrates the wonderful diversity of contemporary Oceanic artistic practice. This exhibition by Sāmoan interdisciplinary artist Yuki Kihara starts with select paintings by Paul Gauguin created during his time in the Islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas. New eyes have created an ‘upscaled’ response.
The Exodus exhibition of contemporary Torres Strait islander artist Joel Sam at the Cairns Art Gallery is also reviewed.
More Pacific pasts will be revisited and reinterpreted at the 2023 OAS Forum in Melbourne in October. I hope to see you there!
Margaret Cassidy
