Paperskin: barkcloth across the Pacific - Queensland Art Gallery

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10 Ngatu 1940s Tonga Barkcloth, dye / 196.4 x 160cm / Gift of Valerie Morris, 1989 / Collection: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Paperskin: An introduction Maud Page in admiration of the Pacific barkcloth samples brought home by early explorers, elizabeth Cook embroidered and fashioned a waistcoat from this cloth for her husband’s expected return in 1780. 1 Captain Cook, however, never felt its supple and silky texture on his skin: only his bones knew the material, when these were carefully bundled in hawaiian barkcloth after his violent death at Kealakekua bay in 1779. barkcloth — wrapped around chiefly bodies, dancers, brides, grooms, babies and the deceased, or offered as ceremonial gifts — is the subject of the ‘Paperskin’ exhibition, and conjures precious narratives from the Pacific. Across one third of the world, and over many centuries, Pacific people have been creating, adapting and repeating designs on the fibrous barkcloth surface. These creations can be utilitarian, but most are still used in important ceremonies. some barkcloths record the passage of time, such as the Tongan ngatu featured in ‘Paperskin’, which depicts Tonga’s World War Two alliances. 2 similarly, Niuean hiapo was sometimes used as parchment to inscribe the names of people and tracts of land, which often indicate the date the hiapo were created. 3 in other cultures, such as that of Papua New Guinea’s baining people, barkcloth is used to construct impermanent, intricate sculptures dedicated to transcendence of the temporal world. Whatever the intent, most barkcloths exhibit an extraordinary array of dexterously applied geometric forms that transfix the eye. From the fine crosshatch work of the solomon islands and Futuna practitioners to the bold, angular lines in Fijian textiles, and to the combination of straight and curved mark-making on Papuan barkcloths, there is in each an aesthetic of symmetry and dynamism. ‘Paperskin’ celebrates this art form, accentuating the diversity of its two-dimensional and sculptural practice while also noting some of the striking synergies in both pattern and use. To those outside the communities in which they are generated, barkcloth’s visual idiom is largely incomprehensible. 4 in Papua New Guinea, for example, much of the 11
information in barkcloth designs is not meant to be shared with outsiders. The Omie women from Oro (or Northern) Province, on the country’s north-east coast, speak of the cloths as their ‘wisdom’ and, of the symbols in their works, will recount only those intended for outsiders. The titles of their nioje (barkcloths) refer to the rich, volcanic landscape that dominates their villages, including Mount lamington, mountains with clouds, jungle vines, tree bark, spider webs, frogs, and the backbones of mountain fish. Yet, each woman imagines this same landscape differently. some like Vivian Marumi can have entirely different interpretations of the same subject — one version of ‘jungle vines’ shows row upon row of symmetrically freehand horizontal lines as thick as a canopy. Another images this same jungle as chaotic and filled with spirals, diamond shapes and blocks of colour. This interpretive freedom is bountiful and produces an incredible diversity in barkcloths made within the same small, remote community. Australian writer Drusilla Modjeska spent time with these artists, and recounts that: When a woman comes into her vai hero (wisdom), it is not simply that she has learned the iconography, but that she lives it so fully that it forms, and informs, her relationship with the cloth. 5 Modjeska’s engagement with the nioje, and her attempt to divulge customary knowledge of the work and practice to a Western audience, is evocative of how other barkcloth from the Pacific can be viewed: While the alphabet of motifs can be named, it is absorbed in such a way that parts do not require naming. The iconography works not by being broken into separate elements, but by a complex patterning of sensation and image that is not translatable — a way of seeing that is affective as well as instructive. 6 As with much other Pacific barkcloth, the Omie’s nioje is a physical manifestation of the makers — who they are, their locality, their history and their cosmology. Titles of abstract works, such as ‘clan history’ and ‘wisdom’, allude to these textiles’ genealogical memory. The Omie say their wisdom is intertwined with the wellbeing of 12 ABOVE Vivian Marumi Papua New Guinea b.1980 Omie people, Oro Province Odunege 1 (Jungle vines 1) 2006 Barkcloth, dye / 142 x 114cm / Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation RIGHT Vivian Marumi Odunege 4 (Jungle vines 4) (detail) 2006 Barkcloth, dye / 163 x 99cm / Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Page 1 and 2: 2 Paperskin Barkcloth across the Pa
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword 6 Tony ellwood /
Page 5: Preface Nicholas Thomas since the e
Page 9 and 10: for the four-metre-high, three-pron
Page 11 and 12: ACKNOWleDGMeNT i would like to ackn
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

Paperskin: barkcloth across the Pacific - Queensland Art Gallery

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