Pasifika Styles Artists inside the museum

by Raymond, Rosanna; Salmond, Amiria

• ISBN13: 9781877372605
• ISBN10: 1877372609
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-01
• Publisher: Otago University Press

Summary

The issue of who owns Pacific artefacts located in European museums and collected by early explorers has been contentious, with strong debate on either side. New ground was broken in 2006 when an exhibition opened in the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology with contemporary Maori and Pacific artists displaying their work next to taonga collected on the voyages of Cook and Vancouver. In developing the exhibition, the curators used the analogy of the waka or Polynesian voyaging canoe -- in this case bringing the people and the sounds back to the Oceanic collections in Cambridge. New Zealand was involved right from the start, as some fifteen artists helped to organise, set up and run the activities during a two-year period. The exhibition was a groundbreaking experiment in the display of Pacific art. This book features a series of essays written by those involved in this innovative exhibition. The essays show how each aspect of the exhibition was developed: from the mechanics of planning and curating to the organisational aspects of artists' visits and workshops. Colourful illustrations of artefacts and artists at work accompany each chapter. The making of "Pasifika Styles" is described from the perspectives of artists, museum professionals and scholars. This book should become a working reference for anyone involved in major exhibitions, particularly those aimed at linking museum collections with contemporary art and artists. The debate about museum collections and ownership is now less two-sided and more collaborative when you see the valuable outcomes of the Pasifika Styles exhibition. This project helped to shift the focus on utterly fixed objects unambiguously owned by individuals, communities and institutions to a more relational understanding of the dynamic links between people and things. Pasifika Styles heralds a new era of collaborative curatorship in ethnographic museums, who can now be seen as repositories keeping ancient art works safe so that future generations can draw inspirations from them.

Author Biography

Rosanna Raymond is an artist, performer and freelance curator who helped to establish the Pasifika Festival in Auckland. Now based in London, she has curated exhibitions at a variety of UK venues and undertaken residencies in Britatin, the US and France. Amiria Salmod is a curator and lecturer at the University of Cambridge. She has produced exhibitions at the Tairiwhiti Museum in New Zealand, and studies and practices Maori weaving. Her book Museums, Anthropology and Imperial Exchange has been published by Cambridge UIniversity Press, and a co-edited volume, Thinking through things: theorising artifacts ethnographically, has recently come out with Routledge.

Table of Contents

Preface
Pasifika Styles, A Waiata
Introduction
Islands of Opportunity: Pasifika Styles and Museums	p. 21
An Interview With Lisa Taouma	p. 31
Pasifika Styles: Where the Bellbird Sings	p. 37
He Tautoko 2006): A New Media Installation	p. 49
Relational Understandings: Connecting People and Things Through Pasifika Styles	p. 55
Fieldwork in a Glass Case: Artistic Practice and Museum Ethnography	p. 73
Fusion/Confusion	p. 81
Some Anxious Moments: The Mechanics and Pragmatics of a Collaborative Exhibition	p. 87
The Pasifika Styles Visiting Artists Programme	p. 97
Tikanga Maori and Art	p. 105
Awakening Sleeping Objects	p. 111
Korero Mai	p. 117
Dad's Chair	p. 121
Pasifika Styles: A Visual Essay	p. 125
Pasifika Styles Exhibition: List of Artists and Works	p. 137
Glossary	p. 142
Bibliography	p. 144
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