by Chris Boylan
Dominating the hill overlooking Cannes city and the Mediterranean is the ancient medieval castle and tower, now the ethnological museum, of Cannes, Le Musée de la Castre. The museum has a small, but very fine collection of Oceanic art including great Polynesian objects and early New Guinea pieces.
An exhibition in the museum in 2019, 4 July – 27 October, features photographs of Papua New Guinea people and ceremony by Wylda Bayrón. Wylda met Christophe Roustan Delatour, the museum’s assistant director, at the Parcours des Mondes in Paris in 2017, who saw her portfolio, and immediately asked her to work on the next available exhibition at Musée de la Castre, in 2019. Supported by the museum director, Mme Théano Jaillet, previously the director of the Musée de Tahiti, the exhibition developed over the next year into an exciting presentation of Wylda’s incredible images, and the juxtaposition of New Guinea objects mainly from the museum’s collection, that connected these objects to the colour and joie de vivreof their original cultural environment.
The museum is a series of stone rooms, none very large, that allowed each room to have a focus of photographic intent, and connection to New Guinea objects. One room was “The Look”, that incredible strong, self-contained “look” that New Guinea performers in ceremony present to the world; another room, Dance and Energy; another room Warfare, in tandem with shields. The most poignant space was that which presented photographs of skin and scarification, all in black and white. Wylda’s photographs were taken in every province of PNG, working with so many diverse groups of people, encouraging them to present what they themselves wanted to show the world about themselves and their culture. Her photographs are very much a collaborative mission with her subjects, the people of PNG with whom she spent days or weeks, and together developed these wonderful images.
The exhibition was opened on 4 July by Cannes’ Deputy Mayor for Culture, Thomas de Pariente, with a large crowd, and press, who all received it enthusiastically. There is a 96 page full colour catalogue, in French and English, and available from the Museum for a mere 12 Euros. I was assigned “commissariat scientifique” for the exhibition, to oversee ethnographic descriptions and write the catalogue text. This first catalogue of Wylda’s photographs is very much a promise fulfilled to her PNG models, to show the world the wonder and splendour of their incredible and diverse cultures. Copies of this catalogue will be going back to each of these many communities that Wylda not only worked with, but became friends with, as a testament to their shared visions.
Héros et Esprits de Nouvelle-Guinée. Photographies de Wylda Bayrón, 4 July – 27 October 2019 at the Musée de la Castre, Cannes.
Top Featured Image: A PNG highlands dancer in full regalia. Wylda Bayrón.