Paperskin: barkcloth across the Pacific - Queensland Art Gallery

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18 Kavat mask (front and back) 1971 Papua New Guinea Kairak Baining people, East New Britain Province Barkcloth, paper, dye, felt pen, wood and cane / 135 x 133 x 60cm / Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant. croton leaves, was propelled on black legs, pounding in time with the drumming, racing forwards, reversing, then stomping ever closer, the head swaying and pirouetting . . . children screamed in fear and ran to escape. In one last, swift burst of fervour, the masked apparition turned, raced and jumped in to the centre of the bonfire. There, for a few long seconds it stomped and twisted, burning sticks and embers scattering in all directions. 17 The baining masks in ‘Paperskin’ bear the traces of their performance: soot from fires, and the remnants of dyes and oils used to paint and perfume the dancer’s skin. however, these masks are more than theatrical devices: they allow for an interaction with, and a continuation of, a specific cosmology. living in the Gazelle Peninsula in the 1970s, theologians Karl hesse and Theo Aerts recorded that the ‘baining worldview accepts as it were two worlds, in which the other one (a rimbab) is the replica of this world’. 18 The invisibility of the rimbab becomes visible in the dances. Masked, their bodies adorned with paint and leaves, the dancers become the manifestation of spirits: They show the forces of nature — but at the same time also their limitations — the power of man, and the ambiguity of his relationship with that which is constantly beyond his immediate grasp. 19 in many cultures across the Pacific, barkcloth continues to be significant. The deliberate repetition of geometric patterns has enabled a visual idiom historically linking barkcloth with other important cultural practices such as tattooing and weaving, as well as defunct art forms such as rock engravings and lapita pottery. recognition and appreciation of these designs has ensured the art form’s ongoing practice. On a fibrous surface, using a restricted colour palette and limited combinations of linear and curvilinear non-figurative designs, barkcloth makers have created extraordinarily diverse works that mediate the social and spiritual transformation of both individuals and groups. For some, the need to sustain this practice — to work communally, and to have goods to give and exchange — is so strong that, even when lacking the essential materials, they continue to innovate. in the mid 1990s in sydney’s west, for example, susana Kaafi gathered a group of women together to cut and glue interfacing material into long strips. laying them onto a large makeshift table in Kaafi’s backyard, they then painted the strips — using the dust scraped from red bricks — with the gridded emblems of the Tongan monarchy alongside stylised images of the sydney Opera house. Maud Page is Curator, Contemporary Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art. 19
ACKNOWleDGMeNT i would like to acknowledge the research and thoughtful input of ruth McDougall, Curatorial Assistant, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art to ‘Paperskin’. eNDNOTes 1 Peter sharrad, ‘Trade and textiles in the Pacific and india’, in Diana Wood Conroy and emma rutherford, Fabrics of Change: Trading Identities [exhibition catalogue], university of Wollongong, NsW, p.14. 2 see Adrienne Kaeppler, ‘The structure of Tongan barkcloth design’, in Pacific Art: Persistence, Change and Meaning, Anita herle, Nick stanley, Karen stevenson and robert l Welsch (eds), Crawford house Publishing, hindmarsh, sA, 2002, pp.291–309. 3 John Pule in John Pule and Nicholas Thomas, Hiapo: Past and Present in Niuean Barkcloth, university of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2005, p.47. 4 simon Kooijman in his seminal and often quoted 1972 text on barkcloth, Tapa in Polynesia, thought that further study was needed on the names given to barkcloth patterns to decipher some of the meanings, but concluded that, ‘in the present state of our knowledge they have no interpretative significance’ and therefore did not include any. There has been some attempt at adding to this body of knowledge, but by and large, there remains remarkably little written information on barkcloth motifs across Polynesia and Melanesia. One pertinent example is rod ewins’s 1982 research on Fijian motifs (originally related to mats) and his more recent study of these in Staying Fijian: Vatulele Island Barkcloth and Social Identity, Crawford house Publishing, hindmarsh, sA, and university of hawaii Press, honolulu, 2009. 5 Drusilla Modjeska, ‘This place, our art’, in Omie: The Barkcloth Art of Omie, [exhibition catalogue], Annandale Galleries, sydney, 2006, p.16. 6 Modjeska, in Omie: The Barkcloth Art of Omie, p.16. rod ewins, speaking on Fijian masi (barkcloth), also states: ‘Thus it is the totality of the pattern that gives meaning, and no one component of the pattern can carry more than a small part of the meaning by itself’, in Staying Fijian: Vatulele Island Barkcloth and Social Identity, p.147. 7 Omie: The Barkcloth Art of Omie, p.29. 8 Caption details: Siapo mamanu, samoa, barkcloth, dye / 173.5 x 128.2cm / Collected by sir Guy richardson Powles c.1949–60. Gift of Michael Powles, 2001 / Collection: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 9 Nicholas Thomas, ‘The case of the misplaced ponchos: speculations concerning the history of cloth in Polynesia’, in Clothing the Pacific, Chloe Colchester (ed.), berg, Oxford, 2003, p.90. 10 simon Kooijman, Tapa in the Pacific, bernice P. bishop Museum bulletin 234, bishop Museum Press, honolulu, hawai‘i, 1972, p358. 11 roger Neich and Mick Pendergrast, Pacific Tapa, David bateman, Auckland Museum, Auckland, 1997, p.136. 12 Chris ballard, email to the author, 4 March 2009. 13 rod ewins has also observed that human remains were found wrapped in black masi in a mortuary cave in Vanualevu, Fiji, in Staying Fijian: Vatulele Island Barkcloth and Social Identity, p.138. 14 Most of Papua New Guinea, the outer islands and parts of the solomon islands have been inhabited for over 40 000 years. The rest of the Pacific was settled by speakers of Austronesian languages from south-east Asia approximately 4000 years ago. This expansion is marked, in particular, by the distinctive Barkcloth (detail) 19th century Papua New Guinea Doriri people, Oro Province Barkcloth, dye / 57.6 x 117.3cm / Collected by Captain F.R. Barton, 1901. Donated 1966 / Collection: Queensland Museum pottery style known as lapita. 15 it includes work by the simbali people in the south of the Gazelle Peninsula, the Chachet in the north-west, and the uramot and Kairak people in the central and central-east regions of the tip of this New britain island. 16 see W.J. read, ‘A snake dance of the baining’, in Oceania, vol. 3, 1931–32, pp.232–37. 17 harold Gallasch, letter to the author, 20 July 2009. 18 Karl hesse and Theo Aerts, Baining Life and Lore, university of Papua New Guinea Press, Port Moresby, 1996, p.41. 19 hesse and Aerts, Baining Life and Lore, p.41. 20 21
Page 1 and 2: 2 Paperskin Barkcloth across the Pa
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword 6 Tony ellwood /
Page 5 and 6: Preface Nicholas Thomas since the e
Page 7 and 8: information in barkcloth designs is
Page 9: for the four-metre-high, three-pron
Page 13 and 14: Traffic in ideas and cultural mater
Page 15 and 16: in New Zealand, people share a rang
Page 17 and 18: 32 Marsang Papua New Guinea, b.1918
Page 19 and 20: y this crocodile barkcloth of their
Page 21 and 22: 40 Nerry Keme Papua New Guinea b.19
Page 23 and 24: Barkcloth 19th century Papua New Gu
Page 25 and 26: Barkcloth unknown Papua New Guinea
Page 27 and 28: Lepau 19th century Ihilland Solomon
Page 29 and 30: Barkcloth 19th century Papua New Gu
Page 31 and 32: 60 Stella Upia Papua New Guinea b.1
Page 33 and 34: 64 Siapo mamanu c.1905 Samoa Barkcl
Page 35 and 36: Mask unknown Papua New Guinea Oroko
Page 37 and 38: List of works 1 Dating of works in
Page 39 and 40: Selected bibliography Bonnemaison,
Page 41: Authors Maud Page Maud Page took up

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