Indigenous Acrylic: Art and Identity in Haidy Geismar

Introduction ing of the United Nations Forum of Indigenous Peoples Art is colonial. Art works can take you outside in 1996 (2002: 390). Kuper (2002: 395) suggests that of yourself, impose their values on you, make these indigenous rights movements generically utilize you see the world in a different way, get you on understandings of race, culture and biology that an- side and make you over afresh… Art gives us thropologists, and others, are intensely uncomfortable an opportunity to think again, and again, and with in other circumstances: again. (Anon. 1992: 13). the conventional lines of argument currently used to justify “indigenous” land claims his essay aims to dissect some of the tightly rely on obsolete anthropological notions [of Tmeshed connections between art objects and con- primitivism, race, and an opposition between cepts of the indigenous, drawing on fieldwork within culture and nature] and false ethnographic the marketplace for the growing contemporary arts vision. Fostering essentialist ideologies of movement in Vanuatu. At a time when the term ‘indig- culture and identity, they may have dangerous enous’ is increasingly fraught with political contesta- political consequences. tion in the global arena, a positive connection between art and indigeneity in the Pacific is only growing stron- The (ongoing) response to Kuper’s piece has varied ger [1]. Through the rendering of ideas and identities from measured to vehement critique (see Kenrick and in acrylic, wool, and wood, contemporary artists in Lewis 2004). Nearly all commentators have highlighted Vanuatu are able to synthesize global and local styles, the importance of acknowledging how ‘dangerous classification and values, providing some alternative politics’ have long and adversely affected indigenous resolutions to more analytic quandaries about the peoples, and the very real necessity for restitution cultural authenticity of their economic and political and empowerment for dispossessed and politically interests. Rather than promoting authenticity as an marginalized first peoples. As Suzman comments, absolute and external value judgment assessing the le- “San people are frustrated not because they cannot gitimacy of identity and economic and political entitle- pursue their “traditional culture” but because they ment, the dialogue and exchange engendered by the are impoverished, marginalized, and exploited by the production and transaction of artworks demonstrates dominant population” (2002: 400). It also remains a fact how authenticity is also a strategy used to establish that many groups of people share an understanding of important and efficacious ideas about local identity in what it means to be ‘native’, ‘first nation’, ‘fourth world’, cross-cultural context. ‘tribal’ or ‘indigenous’ with many other collectives from very different places around the world (see Smith In a controversial article, Adam Kuper (2002) mounted 1999), sharing a broad experience of cultural and a broad critique of the category ‘indigenous’ (and im- political encounter and co-option. Divisions between plicitly of those who use the term, whether they be colonized/colonizer, native/settler, black-brown-red/ native, activist or academic) that, if accepted entirely, white, to name but a few problematic but profound has serious ramifications for the present utility of the distinctions that feed into the criteria of who may be term. Drawing on his readings of the work of various defined as indigenous, are thus very real. What to make indigenous people’s movements concerned primarily then of Kuper’s challenge to their authenticity? with land restitution in Southern Africa, and North and South America, Kuper outlined and challenged the key Anthropologists working in the Pacific, especially notions he identifies as salient to the construction of those working with art and other kinds of cultural indigenous identities — a latent primitivism and cele- production, are particularly well suited to respond to bration of ‘nature’ as opposed to culture, a reliance on Kuper’s polemic. Kuper’s critique of primitivism and blood rights, and the elevation of an idealized (pre-co- identification of the political strategy surrounding lonial) mythic past into the political present. He noted many indigenous land claims intersects with a well- that such forgings of identity are also “popular with worn discussion that, whilst by no means unique to extreme right-wing parties in Europe”, citing the at- Oceanic anthropology, has played a defining role tempts of South African Boers to participate at a meet- within our discipline: the ‘invention of tradition’ (see

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 9 Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983, Hanson 1989, Keesing Morphy and Perkins, 2006). Increasingly, artists, and and Tonkinson eds. 1981, Jolly and Thomas 1992, their work, have entered into these academic discus- Linnekin 1990). In the context of the growing battle for sions, not only as illustrations, but also as active par- empowerment and self-determination by native peoples ticipants (see Mithlo 2006). Over the past few years, living in lands later settled by others and, equally, by there has been growing collaborative engagement with post-colonial nations struggling for recognition on practicing artists, exemplified by the symposium from a world stage, Kuper exposes indigenous identities which this very volume emerges (and see Schneider to be politically contingent, and infinitely malleable and Wright 2005). Despite growing academic and po- even as they are promoted as timeless, natural kinds. litical dispute over the linkages between concepts of He deconstructs the concept of indigenous much as indigenous and land or law (see Brown 1998, 2003), anthropologists once did that of tradition or kastom, the connections between ‘indigenous’ and ‘art’ have and by extension nationalism. As with much of the been powerfully reinforced, celebrated and consumed early invention of tradition debates, Kuper himself in recent years. The intellectual sophistication and po- reifies terms such as invention, tradition and identity, litical activism of many native artists, coupled with the assuming that there may be some pristine (authentic) very real powers of art to reproduce, not just repre- meaning of each which is being corrupted by those sent, knowledge about the world increasingly informs with explicit political agendas. In doing so he crucially our critical analyses. It is this ability to merge diverse ignores local determinations and experiences of what opinion and discourse with culturally specific aesthet- it might mean to be native (see Gegeo 2001: 492, Smith ic forms that makes contemporary art in the Pacific a 1999, Trask 1991 [2]). powerful tool for discussions about cultural, local and national identities. Kuper is right to an extent: indigenous identities, like all identities, are political, contested and fraught with Working closely in dialogue with artists and their work controversy and dissent (both from within and from forces us to consider alternative forms of cultural ex- without) and there are provocative slippages between pression to our own, and to open our analyses to fresh indigenous and national identities. What is interesting perspectives and ways of understanding, and indeed to me is how ideas and discussions about art in the visualizing or experiencing, identity politics. As Fred Pacific may be seen to circumvent critiques such as Myers comments, referring to Aboriginal Australian Kuper, and how the anthropology of art has developed acrylic painting, “its real power and lasting value is a parallel form of communicating about indigeneity that it appears to be of “tradition” while violating it. and nationhood, one which acknowledges shared ter- This ambiguity constitutes its unsettlement” (2004: ritories as well as political inequalities; which shows us 263) and by extension the potential to unsettle main- that categories like ‘primitive’ and ‘modern’ or ‘nature’ stream political debates. The creative synthesis of, and culture are permeable and contingent. Perhaps and intellectual engagement with, diverse art worlds most importantly, this perspective also incorporates demonstrates how art practices are extremely fertile diverse voices, and media, into the analytic frame- ground for the expression, and even resolution, of pro- work, exemplified by the participants in this volume. vocative issues and more discursive divides. As Ngahiraka Mason, curator Maori at the Auckland Art Gallery has written: Indigenous artists contribute Kuper’s polemic emerges from the problematic of dis- and bring vitality to contemporary art and, inasmuch cursively policing the borders of cultural identity with as they provide sweeping panoramic views of a rap- tools that change shape and more often than not slip idly changing world, they also offer departure points out of ones hands. In this essay, I want to exploit the from which to discuss new directions... (Mason 2000: fluid tools of the anthropology of art and draw on my 24). The “post-postcolonial” imaginaries developed by own research in Vanuatu to emphasize how ni-Vanuatu many artists working in the Pacific offer “a counter- artists may empower and connect differing definitions discursive Aboriginal imaginary that is crucial to their of authenticity and the indigenous, to more construc- contemporary self-production” (Ginsberg and Myers tive and analytic, rather than dangerous political ef- 2006: 29). fect. It is here, I suggest, that the anthropology of art might become central, rather than marginal, to some Historically, the anthropology of art has been deeply of the fundamental concerns of anthropology (regard- interested in the cross-cultural applicability of catego- ing identity, ethnicity, and globalization). Indeed, as in ries (such as aesthetics, art and tradition); with the Australia, New Zealand, and other settler-societies, in- ways in which values (such as that of authenticity) are digenous art is frequently intrinsically linked to land produced and reproduced in social and historical con- rights and claims making it far from marginal to these text; and with the symbolic and/or representational issues (see Ginsberg and Myers 2006, Myers 2002, meaning of images in relation to identity politics (see 2004, Morphy 1991, Morphy and Smith Boles 1999).

10 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Art in Vanuatu are perceived to be more embedded in local practice The canonization of contemporary art in Vanuatu is and society. The notion that economic gain has be- a relatively recent phenomenon yet, despite the overt come the guiding motivation for many cultural pro- associations of the category with social and political ductions and presentations in the Pacific is salient concepts that have arrived from afar, contemporary within much anthropological analysis (Stanley 1998). art objects are used as much in the presentation and Ton Otto’s paper entitled Empty tins for lost traditions development of ideas about indigenous culture and (1993) exemplifies this attitude. He comments “in the tradition as they are in the development of local par- tourism and artifact business expatriate entrepreneurs ticipation in an international art world. In this way, cat- and local agents share a complicit interest in sustain- egories considered by many commentators to be non- ing dreams of primitivism and exoticism” (1993: 13), local (such as art) are, in places like Vanuatu, prime and laments the loss of authentic local culture. Chris grounds for the production and manifestation of local Tilley on the other hand, interprets the performance identity. of grade-taking ceremonies for tourists on Wala island, North-East , as a way in which islanders may This essay draws upon research with people interested creatively negotiate between modernity and tradition- in art in Vanuatu — makers, dealers and collectors — alism: “By virtue of the practice of objectifying culture to discuss how ideas about authenticity and indigenous in the show people are beginning to learn that they identity are mediated in this cross-cultural context. have to negotiate and transform it.” (1999 [1997]: 259). The negotiations about value and identity that have In this analysis he raises an important critique of en- emerged in the Vanuatu art world present an alterna- trenched concepts of authenticity that view hybrid in- tive view of identity politics to Kuper, where categories teractions between islanders and tourists (or indeed and values are conceived as intrinsically opposed to one any other foreigner) as somehow spurious. another rather than as mutually constituted, dynamic and imbued with creativity. As Sero Kuautonga, a lead- There is an implicit economic morality that places ing ni-Vanuatu painter, commented on this synthesis the market at the opposite end of the spectrum of in describing one of his paintings: Since independence, authenticity to tradition. Dean MacCannell concludes our kastom, church and independence have all come melancholically, that tourism and globalisation are the together. Vanuatu as a nation must be referred to in creators of ‘empty meeting grounds’ (1992), unequal- my painting. My painting is my culture. [3] ly separating the world into consumers (tourists, and perhaps even anthropologists) and commodities (“ex- Authenticity in the Art Market primitives” selling themselves as cultural productions). The Vanuatu art world is therefore a place where com- In this view, values such as traditional and modern are plex relations between local, national and international created by a hierarchical market forces, dominated by contexts converge in paint, wood and wool. In this, it a cannibalistic white culture, which is “an enormous is primarily an urban phenomenon –– the exhibition totalization” (Ibid: 129, see also Stanley 1998). hall of the French embassy on the main high street in the capital, , is one of the few places ni- In the case of the art market in Port Vila, discourses Vanuatu, resident expatriates and tourists meet and of collectors and dealers may be seen to converge mingle comfortably, providing a space for cross-cul- with those of artists, complicating some of these more tural conversation and more often than not, provoca- pessimistic discussions. Whilst it cannot be denied tive discussion (Geismar 2004). This kind of art market that making money through the circulation of art is is a good place to start in examining how ideas about the primary agenda, art production also entails an authenticity and identity are both entangled and nego- ongoing public conversation about what it means to tiated. For instance, in most marketplaces concerned be ni-Vanuatu. Unlike mainstream artists in Europe, with artifacts categorized as art, buyers may think that Australasia or North America, whose work tends to they are simply buying objects of pure aesthetic value, be evaluated primarily in terms of their art education, but in reality they are often purchasing a relationship their originality, or their individual creativity, artists between the object and its producer (e.g. it is not only in the Pacific tend to be judged in the art market more the image created by Picasso that a collector buys, but by their place in a broader community, their connec- that fact that Picasso himself made it). This perspec- tion to their ancestral and customary heritage, and the tive exposes that authenticity is relational, and socially formal continuities of their work and practice between and politically constructed rather than inherent to any past and present. In this context, contemporary art particular object. straddles many discursive divides, being both tradi- tional and modern, made for the market, and embody- In turn, it is often the case that objects made for sale ing traditional practices and identities. are valued as somewhat less authentic than those that

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 11 Many collectors of Pacific art follow the archetypal spheres of exchange. Ni-Vanuatu often enter dealer collector, Nelson Rockefeller, in linking so-called non- stores in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, commenting western arts to forces of nature, to spirituality and to on the pieces on display. Such pieces must therefore some kind of collective unconscious: be legitimated in front of a local audience as well as for There are inner forces in one’s life that some- visiting tourists. The market may be seen as a border times seem to be unrelated to conscious zone, a public space that foregrounds “the unresolv- thought. This can be true of appreciation as able oscillations, the restless toing-and-froing, and the well as creation of art. Much of so-called primi- cultural, commercial, and political crossings” that de- tive art was created as direct response to strong velop value (Spyer 1998: 1). Ni-Vanuatu want to make feelings. [4] and sell artifacts that represent them properly to oth- ers and that are perceived to be locally unique. They However, many artists also share this attitude across also want and need to earn money to survive in the the Pacific, who do not see this as incompatible with growing urban settlements of Vanuatu. Market sales their lives as professional artists. For instance Michael become grounds of political negotiation and cultural Busai, from Futuna in Vanuatu, works full time for navigation by local people, who use concepts of the National Bank of Vanuatu as well as being internation- indigenous and of authenticity as their tools. Authen- ally renowned for his pen and ink drawings. He de- ticity, which in this context hinges on a series of pro- scribes the customary basis for his work: scriptions about what it means to be indigenous, is a My work is based on traditional art, the art of notion utilized on both sides of a transaction in or- the island environment that I come from. But der to strategically maximize political and economic it is in a new style, that I have invented…. The relations in a variety of different contexts. Here, it is thing that really inspires me is the environment a category made in wood or paint, out of the relations of my childhood days. There are many things between ni-Vanuatu and others. that really inspired me in early childhood, which are unique to the village environment. In Port Vila, values of authenticity, and the promotion, [In my art] you can see the birds that I shot through artwork, of ni-Vanuatu identities, are therefore as a child when I was in the bush, the fish and made somewhat jointly between art producers and seafood… it reflects the natural scenery of the traders. Hanging around the newly opened store natural environment of the village and also our of a French dealer, gave me some good examples of cultural background, our legends and myths, this. Madame X came to Vanuatu after many years because the area I am from is one that I really in Senegal, and has lived in Port Vila since 1988. She want to research. I think it is very interesting is married to a prominent Vietnamese businessman, how all the myths and legends are related to who has close family ties with a nearby peri-urban our real environment… So in other words, you village. Her husband was a vital resource in helping have a link to the supernatural, through our her consolidate her trade links with ni-Vanuatu. myths, from the physical world…. This is a se- Madame X’s priority was to sell kastom, which she cret behind my own painting. My painting has initially defined as focusing purely on objects, valuing the same foundation that is behind our myths age, ritual use, and island production rather than the and legends — it has a strong spiritual force urban context of settlements in Port Vila. When she that really motivates me. [5] first opened, Madame X often visited the Vanuatu National Museum using the objects on display there As well as forging commercial value in the market- as a marker for defining authentic kastom artifacts. place, art in Vanuatu is an important way to reinforce On occasion, before she had established her own identities bound up in connections to ancestral pow- trade connections, she even bought things from the er as well as in connection to development projects, museum store and resold them downtown at a higher churches, and tourist ventures. There is little doubt price. Around these objects, she placed photocopied that the artworks produced in this context inculcate pages from the exhibition catalogue, Arts of Vanuatu, a shared discourse — as convergences, or material- in order to give scholarly validation and authenticity izations, of both self-definition and outsider interest, to her selections, and she also gave photocopied pages in the context of multiple investments made within a to local producers and asked them to make the objects complex field of cross-cultural engagement. illustrated: for example, she had a variety of hair combs from collected in this manner Dealers and Artists Making Value Together (Bonnemaison et al. 1996: 141) The marketplace becomes a place where a variety of different kinds of authenticity are produced, and After she had established her own trade connections, where local identities are consolidated within broader Madame X moved away from this more museological definition of kastom, to one that emerged more out of

12 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Figure 1.1 Falibak carving from on display in Madame X’s store and the story that was given to her by its maker to put by it in the store. Photograph by Haidy Geismar. interaction with the people she was working with. One serpent, and hung from the branches of a big day when I was in the store, a woman from is- Banyan tree. After the child was born, he lived land who had entered to look at some carved wooden in the Banyan tree where he grew up into a big storyboards from her island, commented loudly: “You man. He saw a man from Wakon who had a pig. should have the stories up around the objects, they’ll This pig was walking by the ocean carrying its sell better.” Madame X had realised early on that real babies on its shoulders, and came up to the kastom was a complex social phenomenon, and that roots of the Banyan tree. The man from Wakon kastom objects needed to be socially embedded to be was searching for his pig and found him asleep valuable. She began to request vendors to write down with its babies under the Banyan tree. He looked information about the artefacts [fig. 1.1], not just any up into the branches and saw the child sitting information but kastom storian (kastom stories). in the tree. He asked, “What is your name”. The child replied, “My name is Mel”. Then Mel Story from Falibak: How Man was Formed asked him “Who are you? What are you doing?” Once upon a time, a little child was borne The man replied in his own language, meaning of a liana vine. This vine was in the shape of a that he was walking around trying to find his pig. Mel gave the man a name: Bangbangon.

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 13 Bangbangon tried to get his pig to go down to ternal interest, and rather than evaluating their legiti- the village, but the pig could not move because macy we need to accept the political contingency and Mel had tied him to a root of the tree. The man dynamism of this principle and process. Ultimately from Wakon wanted to go to work on his house in this context, expatriate dealers may suffer because in the village, but because he couldn’t move his they themselves do not fulfill the particular criteria of pig, he stayed there under the tree with Mel. authenticity that is most salient to definitions of indig- They stayed there together and Bangbangon enous identity: that of personhood, made incontrovert- saw that Mel was feeding the pig with his long ible by deep connections to local place, This form of hair to make the pig big and fat. The pigs grew authenticity serves ni-Vanuatu well in the marketplace, and grew and gave birth to many more pigs. As drawing upon an oppositional identity politics that he watched, Mel taking out his hair and feeding privileges indigenous knowledge and market partici- it to the pig, Bangbangon said: “Now your name pation, to the detriment of expatriates who will always is no longer Mel, it is Melfel because now you be ‘outsiders’ in these terms. Even as Madame X was have a bald head!” building up her store, other more established dealers He stayed a long time with the ageing stores were closing shop, disaffected with their lack of Melfel. He said to Bangbangon, “If I die, you will success in navigating the customary regulations sur- not bury me. You must put me in the Banyan rounding the production of kastom artifacts and with tree where I can sit and look over everything.” the complex identity politics which did not legitimate Bangbang did as Melfel told him to do, he put them (Geismar 2005). him up in the branches of the Banyan tree, and over time, he became like a stone. Dealer stores in Port Vila are thus spaces within which All the people from Falibak used this stone ni-Vanuatu can subvert some of the inequalities be- (in the language of Falibak, called Muyuepu) to tween themselves and generally more affluent expa- nourish their pigs, and they say that they make triates, and, increasingly assert economic and politi- the pigs grow big and reproduce making all cal self-determination. In this way, the production and men rich in pigs. circulation of artworks is a way in which dynamic local And these stones of Bangbangon were used and national politics are worked out in practice, more by Rengrengaim after Bangbangon died. When often as not as a way of articulating shared values and Rengrengaim died then Meleun Batken used mutual engagements. them, when he died, they were used by Lokbaro Tungon, when he died they were passed to Art Making the Indigenous Bangdomal. Bangdomal used them until 1913, The negotiations around indigeneity and authenticity the year of the big volcano eruption at Deep in dealer’ stores and the growth of the marketplace Point. Now the volcano has buried the stones in has also given rise to the production of new kinds of the village of Falibak in West Ambrym at Deep objects, made specifically for this context. The growing Point. contemporary arts movement in Vanuatu has provided So this figure represents this power, and an avenue for debates around the relationship between belongs to me, Joseph Tungon from Falibak. I tradition and modernity to be made more explicit to carved the figure again and no one else is al- a wide audience. For ni-Vanuatu engaged as artists, lowed to carve him. [6] contemporary art (in contrast to kastom material culture) is a way in which social and political concerns The story above was given to Madame X by a carver may be articulated, a method for capitalising on culture from Ambrym Island along with a wooden figure to sell as a resource to profit from the sale of artworks, a way in her store. The narrative links the wooden carving to in which they can present and discuss ideas about a mythic ancestor figure and explains how the carver indigeneity and nationhood to each other and to knows how to carve this particular image. In present- strangers, and a material marker and maker of these ing the complex genealogies and connections to place classifications and distinctions. As Ralph Regenvanu, that this ancestor embodies, the carver not only repre- the director of the , and a sents crucial parts of his heritage to the consumer, but practicing artist, has noted: he also consolidates his local knowledge and identity What is called “art” in Vanuatu today is based on to a more local audience — stating for example that he many of the same principles as the traditional alone is entitled to carve (and sell) this particular im- creative forms that preceded it. Contemporary age because of his genealogy. art is perhaps distinguishable from its fore- bears only in terms of the wider range of media Such complex criteria of authenticity are balanced used and the sources of inspiration and mo- around the principles of self-definition as well as ex- tivation for creative expression…Although the

14 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Figure 1.2 Moses Jobo, synthesizes the local and the national in his decorations of a UNELCO electricity shed, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 2001. This scene is about tribal reconciliation in . Photograph by Haidy Geismar.

tradition of contemporary art in Vanuatu has the natural resources of Vanuatu (of which culture is its origins in the drawing and paintings of the a constituent part), and goes on to describe a corpus colonial settlers and European visitors to these of national symbols, all of which are stylised motifs islands, the contemporary art scene in Vanuatu connecting culture and nature [figs. 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4]. today features a prominent ni-Vanuatu as well Thus, the , the symbol of Long as European presence, with the primary West- God yumi stanap [In God we stand] incorporates cul- ern form being increasingly transformed by ture into the natural resources of the country. [7] creations inspired by indigenous conceptions. As an expression of the individual and collec- The symbol is explained: tive experience, contemporary art in Vanuatu is The man is a ni-Vanuatu, a Melanesian and a perhaps uniquely placed to provide an ongoing chief. The spear he holds represents his role representation of life in a country in which the as defender and protector of his people. His latest Western technology coexists with a living armbands (shell money) denote his role as the and vital Melanesian spirituality. (Regenvanu dealer in economic exchanges and distributor 1997: 5) of services, goods and resources. His headdress and loincloth represent the various modes of Image production has been an important ground for attire found throughout the country. The man thinking about the specificities of being ni-Vanuatu — stands with his feet firmly on the ground, in a particular kind of indigenous identity defined in rela- the soil of his land, Vanuatu. The crossed cycad tion to national citizenship. In 1990, to commemorate leaves in the background signify the peace de- ten years of independence, the Government of Vanuatu rived from chiefly authority and jurisprudence. published a book celebrating the newly forged national The circular pig tusk symbolises unity, wealth, (Vanuatu 1999). In a section enti- and prosperity, an outgrowth of human inter- tled National Symbols, the anonymous writer claims action, authority and peace. The mat in front of that the basis of independent identity is to be found in the man recalls the importance of agriculture in

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 15 Figure 1.3 Moses Jobo, synthesizes the local and the national in his decorations of a UNELCO electricity shed, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 2001. Pigs tusk flanks the of Vanuatu. Photograph by Haidy Geismar.

our traditional economy. Mats are the product 1987, artists Emmanual Watt, Sero Kuautonga, Fidel of women’s labour, and women are the produc- Yoringmal, Juliette Pita and French expatriate Patrice ers and managers of our agricultural economy. Cujo, met at L’Atelier, the French gallery owned by Our motto, ‘Long god yumi stanap’, reminds us dealer Suzanne Bastien, in Port Vila to discuss the to give back to God our Creator, in sacrifice, establishment of an organisation of contemporary art. all that He has abundantly bestowed upon us. The meeting was also attended by ni-Vanuatu who had (Ibid: 28-29) been trained in art at INTV (the technical training college in Port Vila) during the four years that the course was Here is the contemporary nation-state drawn large. available, including Juliette Pita, John Joseph, Michael The conflation of nature with culture as indigenous re- Busai, and Sylvester Bulesa. Prior to this, contemporary sources that can be stylised and circulated as a series art in Vanuatu had only been produced by foreigners; of images (consolidating the local and the national) has exemplified by the work of French artists Nicholai had great affect on the production of artefacts categor- Michoutouchkine and Robert Tatin (Regenvanu 1996, ised explicitly as contemporary art. Geismar 2004). Following a suggestion of Pita’s, they decided that the organisation be named Nawita, the Contemporary art mediates kastom term for octopus. Each tentacle of the octopus The production of contemporary art in Vanuatu entails represents a different artistic medium or material a constant negotiation between continuity and change. form of expression, highlighting the diverse talents of Images made from tapestry, paint on canvas, or water- the group, united in a single association. colour on paper, are seen as explicitly contemporary in ways that images created by technologies and materi- In terms of expatriate relations, the association is still als that have been institutionalised within kastom are predominantly Francophile — the constitution was not. However, they are made indigenous by virtue of initially written in French — affirming a free member- the symbols drawn upon and the identity of the people ship open to expatriates and ni-Vanuatu alike. Despite that produce them. these connections, Nawita presents itself as an indige- nous organisation [8]. Expatriate artists act as teachers Newly found national material such as contemporary art and facilitators, but maintain a lower public profile, not only mediates between the locality and the nation, keeping up the indigenous appearance of the asso- but between national and international domains. The ciation. Now with nearly a hundred members, Nawita first organisation of ni-Vanuatu contemporary artists continues to hold yearly exhibitions, in the gallery of emerged in this context, out of a series of interactions the French Embassy, and remains the most prolific and between urban ni-Vanuatu and expatriate artists. In high profile artists association in Vanuatu

16 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Figure 1.4 Andrew Tovovur. Tapestry depicting the arrival of the Pacific Sky cruise ship in Vila harbor. Photograph by Haidy Geismar. Out of this framework, the primary criteria of the thing that is not kastom, which has aspects of association’s membership define the contemporary the post-European contact . as explicitly against the concept of kastom. This is For example, money or cash, or even the church, primarily a material distinction: artists or artisans or things like their clothes and so using traditional media and traditional principles are on are not kastom. excluded (Regenvanu 1996: 312). The use of tradition- In all the work I do I try to create images of as-image, transforms kastom. Whilst contemporary art Vanuatu, pictures that I’m interested in. All my objects are not regarded to have ritual efficacy, or be work is based around Vanuatu themes. I don’t do emplaced in local tradition, their reliance on customary anything that isn’t. Always I want to represent imagery defines them as indigenous. For example, an the fact that this conflict exists in everything. expatriate accountant who crafted a miniature replica Everything that happens in Vanuatu has the of the Pentecost Land Dive out of matchsticks and won kastom and non-kastom side. So you have to first prize at an art competition in 1995, was deposed find symbols for them and how they interact. of his prize once his nationality was fully realized That’s a lot of my art, and all the other artists’ by the kastom chiefs acting as judges [9] — he was work here in Vanuatu. All the contemporary working with new materials, but was, as a foreigner artists have aspects of both in their drawings not allowed to use the land dive as a representational and their art. resource. Such criteria of authentic personhood are For me, I use a motif of a face from a drum, not yet extended to ni-Vanuatu and it is still legitimate a slit-gong and also Black Palm figures that for artists such as Juliette Pita, from Erromango Island, they carve on my island. I’m very conscious to create versions of the Pentecost land dive out of about using things that I have a right to use. I tapestry. don’t use symbols from other islands that be- long to other groups of people. But you’ll find Nawita members conscientiously follow the same that many of the contemporary artists in Vanu- rules of indigenous entitlement in place for material atu today, and most of them have contributed classified as kastom: they perceive kastom objects to to this exhibition, do use symbols from other be the entitlements of authentic persons (determined islands, which aren’t really theirs. But they use by natal affiliations with particular islands) expressed them in the terms of a national idea of kastom. using authentic materials, usually those with a basis in When they use it, for example, they use an im- the locality, or in nature. Ralph Regenvanu, describes age of a face from another island where they’re how his work [fig. 1.5] negotiates this relationship: not from, to represent kastom in a national I always use symbols when I work; I think context. Artists have got into trouble for do- maybe a lot of artists here do. Basically the ing that, and it’s something they have got to be symbols are to do with the distinction between careful about. I totally avoid it at all costs. kastom and non-kastom. Kastom is taken to I just try not to use anything at all, any mean anything that has aspects of, or any as- traditional design that doesn’t come from my pect that represents the pre-European past, like area. So I stick to a certain range of options that the indigenous cultures of Vanuatu. Kastom is I can use to represent kastom when I do any obviously made to be a distinct thing from any- designs. At the same time there’s a different

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 17 Figure 1.5 Ralph Regenvanu. Development After Independence (Vanuatu 1998). Mixed media on custom board. Photo- graph by Haidy Geismar.

range of options that I can use from the non- of contemporary arts in Vanuatu to forge some kind kastom side. Obviously a wider range because of material resolution between the often-problematic there aren’t really these issues of copyright opposition of tradition and modernity in a national in- that I have to be sensitive about. [10] digenous identity.

New Traditions Equally, painter Sero Kuautonga reflected upon his Given that the criteria for authentic personal identity own piece, The Future [fig. 1.6] in the New Traditions is extended into the production of contemporary arts, exhibition: it soon becomes apparent that the material form of My idea behind this picture is our future. To me contemporary art pieces are grounds upon which cru- our future is based on the past, and our past cial definition and distinctions are formed and synthe- is based on our culture. So based on our cul- sised. An example of such synthesis can be drawn out tural heritage and our cultural knowledge, we of an exhibition entitled New Traditions: Contemporary can enter the future. In this picture I have ex- Art from Vanuatu, which was held at the VCC in 1999- pressed an aspect of our cultural heritage that 2000 (VCC 2000) and subsequently toured Australia is copyright. We cannot create or copy those and New Zealand [11]. In the exhibition, connections designs but we can get inspiration from those were made between contemporary art made by indi- images and create new ones. I have stylized all vidual artists (all ni-Vanuatu citizens) [12], and con- the traditional designs. You can see the face of temporary objects (traditional, but newly made) that a slit-drum. You can also see a pig’s tusk, a rock were associated with general island styles more than design and a footprint. The footprint symboliz- specific individuals. The new traditions of the title of es standing in your own culture so that you can the exhibition accentuated the strong relationships be- enter the future, which is the bright space. The tween traditional and contemporary arts in the forging namele leaf is the bridge so that we can speak of ni-Vanuatu identities. to each other. It symbolizes staying in the past so that you can enter the future. That is how we Ten contemporary artists from the Nawita association can communicate. There is also a show print. were asked to interpret ten periods from the history The show print steps on the footprint as it of Vanuatu [13]. These pieces were then placed along- steps into the future. So knowing our cultural side examples of recently made traditional artifacts in heritage and our cultural knowledge we can en- order to demonstrate “both the similarities and con- ter the new world, which is the modern world… trasts between modern and traditional art” (Ibid). In In Vanuatu we have an association of modern his comment above, Regenvanu emphasizes that he contemporary artists. For me, the association is views kastom as a parallel way of being to that of the symbolic of a keyhole that we can use to open a ways of the west (epitomized by clothes, money, and new door, which is contemporary art. Christianity). In his painting Development After Inde- pendence, the ultimate national symbol includes not Since the New Traditions show, contemporary artists in only the national flag, but is made partly from images Vanuatu have increasingly reflected upon what makes of vatu banknotes. Regevanu’s comment that “Every- their work unique as ni-Vanuatu artists, as they par- thing that happens in Vanuatu has the kastom and ticipate in international workshops, art festivals and non-kastom side” emphasizes the synthetic capability biennials. The Nawita association has expanded its membership, and other artists associations have been

18 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Figure 1.6 Sero Kuautonga, The future, Oil on Canvas. 1998. Photograph by Haidy Geismar. founded. For instance, a young carver from Tongoa Is- periods of Vanuatu’s colonial history and his experi- land, Kake Buko, participated in an exhibition of Ton- ences of Pacific multiculturalism: goan carvings at the French Embassy in Port Vila in I want to address in my work some styles of 2001. He described to me how he defined his unique Vanuatu that everyone here knows about. Since style and subject matter. His training in traditional I was in Australia, I have been researching the carving in his island home was supplemented by his story of the experiences of the workers from work with the US office in Port Vila and Vanuatu who went to Australia one hundred by carving workshops in Australia and the Solomon years ago to work on the sugar plantations. Islands. He draws on the traditional carving techniques I have carved their story onto a traditional of his island, storyboards [figs. 1.7 and 1.8], to depict

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 19 Figure 1.7 Kake Buko, . Storyboard. 2001. Detail. Photograph by Haidy Geismar.

Tongoan storyboard. My work reflects both my who is responsible for producing the ritual material own experiences and wider Pacific art. [14] culture used by his family in important ceremonial rites of status acquisition, they began to talk about Buko also incorporates techniques learned in the Solo- what made objects real, or authentic: mon Islands such as pearl-shell inlay to his relief carv- ing. The material consolidation of ni-Vanuatu experi- Richard Abong: Yes, our art must have its time. ence and identity is thus forged in the wider context The things that we are making now, come from of the exchange of ideas, styles, and of overlapping our desire to revive the masks which were used histories, and Buko’s work is also part of a growing before… we have to go inside our kastom of pan-Pacific visual style, one which highlights shared the past, and make these masks part of our ac- connections of experience between the indigenous tivities today… When we make them we follow peoples of Oceania. the ‘originality’ of the masks that were made before. All of the new masks that we make; we Looking at the work and comments of contemporary try our best to make them follow the originality artists in Vanuatu demonstrates that the Port Vila of the old masks. art world is a place where ideas about indigenous au- thenticity are re-made over the tension lines of tradi- Sero: Yes, for example, in making a mask, it tion/modernity. As in the marketplace, the key to the isn’t just the creation of art or artefact. It must authentic production of contemporary art objects is be made with how you behave around the time the same as for other artifacts: they must be made by of preparation, to collect the right material, indigenous, entitled producers, who in turn set the then to slowly build up the mask, then at the boundaries and definitions of their own indigeneity. end there must be a ceremony with a dance, During one conversation I had with Sero Kuautonga so everything is part of this bigger thing. The and Richard Abong, a chief from Southern Malakula, object or artefact that you look at, it isn’t just

20 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS Figure 1.8 Kake Buko: Kastom dress, Storyboard. Photograph by Haidy Geismar.

an artefact, it is a full process. Otherwise there and presenting contemporary art can help us to devel- is no meaning to the mask, you are just making op an academic language that can incorporate diversi- it to sell. You must make it with a purpose. ty, fluidity and dynamic change in our understandings The purpose is the mask, the activity that goes of how people talk about their sense of identity and with it, kastom dance, or whatever it is. But if their understandings of authenticity. you just ‘make it’, and you leave it as it is, the thinking of old tells us that you will be affected This discussion of the machinations of the art market by this, it will go against you. [15] in Vanuatu has highlighted that rather than analytical- ly sweeping the value of authenticity under the carpet, For Sero, a contemporary artist, and Richard, a ritual we should recognize it as a powerful mechanism by practitioner, the ancestral past is the ultimate source which the category of the indigenous is made by local of authenticity and of indigenous identity. Ancestors agents in tandem with diverse external interest groups. are the link between living people, local places and In addition, by focusing on some ways in which the their productions. As such contemporary art practice contemporary artists of Vanuatu construct their own takes mythic history and kastom and makes it into in- concepts of the indigenous that acknowledge both digenous national cultural heritage. mythic pasts and contemporary historical and political realities, this essay has emphasized how criteria of the Conclusions indigenous are currently played out in the production Contemporary indigenous art can be used as a window of art. Contemporary art objects may be understood to view how some seemingly opposite ways of being are as cross-cultural meeting grounds, which may facili- united materially in everyday life for many ni-Vanuatu. tate the reconciliation between sharply contrasting Localized notions of the indigenous and of authenticity domains of political and cultural experience and the are drawn through increasingly international relations: classifications and values that are attendant to them the internationalist environment of the market and the (Thomas 1991). internationally recognized language of contemporary arts. Both categories emerge from a web of connec- In summary, looking closely at contemporary indig- tions, which might incorporate foreigners in Vanuatu enous art can show how authenticity and indigene- and in other countries, as well as neighboring island- ity are made or materialized out of a long history of ers from throughout the archipelago, but never forgets cross-cultural political and economic exchange and in- to foreground difference as much as relationality. In teraction. Kuper’s discussion, in ignoring local exege- this way, objects (especially contemporary art objects) sis of these categories, is curiously limited. Focusing become sites upon which oppositional tensions be- on the ways in which dealers, collectors and artists in tween tradition and modernity, continuity and change the Pacific, describe authenticity shows that there is can coexist. To make an authentic artwork in Vanuatu, a very real efficacy to the category, as it is negotiated one that is legitimately viable in cultural and economic between these different interest groups, and consoli- terms, one must be an authentic (indigenous) person. dated in the very form of artworks themselves. It is To be an authentic person means claiming indisput- still vital for many native artists to integrate their cul- able rights in particular places. Both authentic places tural identity into their work; tourists and collectors and persons are ascribed and described by objects. It still ask whether pieces they buy are truly authentic; is important to realize that there is space for dispute, dealers discuss authenticity amongst themselves as controversy, and dissent within this process. Making well as with the people that they buy or sell to (albeit

Chapter 1. Indigenous Acrylic 21 in somewhat different terms). Asking what it means for a person or an object to be real or really indigenous is asking a question about authenticity: a judgment that determines the worth of something in terms of the strength of its identity claims. As Regenvanu and Kuautonga both acknowledge in their artist’s state- ments, being indigenous is also a value of entitlement. In this way, the relationship between classifications and values pertaining to authenticity and indigenous identity are extremely powerful and it is for this rea- son that they continue to be used and to resonate as important categories of thought.

22 PACIFIC ISLAND ARTISTS