Women’s Wealth Interactive extends beyond Gallery walls

 

The ‘Women’s Wealth’ project focuses on what contemporary art can mean for women living in villages in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. Envisaged as a collective collaboration rather than a static installation, the project involves public engagement that extends beyond the walls of the gallery, including the Women’s Wealth website.

The website introduces audiences to the extensive development of the ‘Women’s Wealth’ workshop at the Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre in North Bougainville in September 2017 where the making began. Pursue the profiles of each individual artist and their geographical and cultural contexts which give their artworks specific meaning. Explore the project through the 3D interactive with a virtual experience of the exhibition.

Designed and created by Brisbane based Ortelia Interactive Services, the interactive has been developed from over 14,581 individual photographs which allows you to move 360 degrees around the sculptural works, zooming in to pick up the intricacy of the women’s stitching and panning back out to enjoy majestic sight lines through works. The 93 works out of 154 available as 3D images include stills from Taloi Havini’s immersive multichannel video Habitat 2018 and the full length of Women’s Wealth documentary by Jesmaine Gano and Georgianna Lepping. Quickly locate an artist and artwork details and expanded texts and secondary images documenting process and materials.

In addition to enabling access to audiences around the globe, both the interactive and the accompanying 3D photographic documentation of ‘Women’s Wealth’ for Google cardboard will return the project to the site of its inception in the remote villages of Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. Armed with this virtual tool via mobile phone apps and local downloads, ‘Women’s Wealth’ artists will be able to share the experience of their work and its presentation within an international exhibition with family, clan and community leaders. This is of significant value to the ‘Women’s Wealth’ team.

In the context of Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, ideas of self are understood primarily via one’s relationships with others. Works of aesthetic expression created within this context are often an articulation of, and an act of service to this relational network. Many of the artists in ‘Women’s Wealth’ have worked with collectively owned forms, designs and knowledge which they would customarily only create for the benefit of family and clan. A number also worked collaboratively with other women to collect and prepare materials and make works.

While only a select few of these artists were able to travel to Brisbane to participate in the opening of APT9, the ‘Women’s Wealth’ team is excited that the website and its interactive acknowledges this larger network and enables the opportunity to experience the works presentation and to engage in conversations around the meaning of the works in this new context.

Ruth McDougall is Curator, Pacific Art, QAGOMA

Watch our Women’s Wealth documentary

Watch a Performance of Bougainville dance

Women from the Brisbane Bougainville Community Group Inc. perform a range of dances from across the Autonomous Region of Bougainville during APT9. The women are supported by Bougainville men creating the dynamic rhythmic sounds of the traditional bamboo band, but using PVC pipes and flip-flops.

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Purchase the APT9 publication

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Women’s Wealth has been supported by the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grant program, DFAT and the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Feature image detail: Installation of the ‘Women’s Wealth’ project during APT9, Queensland Art Gallery

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Eight majestic rings of Tutana and Loloi commissioned for APT9

 

Following years of collaboration and building relationships, the Gallery recently commissioned and acquired eight majestic rings of Tutana of Loloi created by a group of Gunantuna (Tolai) men from Nangananga village in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Designed to mesmerise their viewer, the spectacular rings are banks of shell money and objects of social value. The jewel like shell encrusted cane strips comprising them – known as Diwarra or Tabu – are legal tender in East New Britain.

Gunantuna Loloi and Tutana before they are wrapped for delivery to QAGOMA for APT9, Nangananga, East New Britain, PNG, June 2018

Diwarra has a market value and is used by the Gunantuna alongside the national currency, the PNG kina, for everyday transactions including buying trade store goods and paying school fees. It is the only currency, however, used within rites relating to bride price, the distribution of wealth at death and initiation where amounts distributed are ceremonially fixed. In these circumstances, Diwarra laboriously bound into rings of Loloi or Tutana articulates and enacts important relational connections.

Long canes of shells and rings of finely bound canes constitute gifts between clans and individuals that mark their connectedness. Diwarra can be stored in a Loloi for decades and its emergence and re-distribution enacts connections not only between those present at the ceremony, but between the living and those who have passed.

Gideon Kakabin’s sketch of Tutana wrappings, June 2018

The creation of the APT9 Loloi of Tutana was led by artist and historian, Gideon Kakabin an initiated elder from Nangananga who very sadly passed away shortly after the works were completed. A ceremony known as a Minamai Minamai, involving family, friends and local Gunantuna community members will be held alongside the launch of Minamar na Tutana ma Loloi (Tutana and Loloi display) 2018 as part of the opening weekend of The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9). As part of the Minamai Loloi of Diwarra acquired by the Gallery will be broken open and designated lengths of Diwarra will be distributed as a mark or respect and connection to Gideon.

Gideon Kakabin with commissioned Loloi and Tutana for APT9, 19 July 2018

Gideon Kakabin was a man who shared his knowledge and energies generously through his work in fields as diverse as software development, tourism, history, culture, art and ethnography. His capacity to attract a commission and then collect the Diwarra and engage enough men to create the enormous APT9 Minamar na Tutana ma Loloi (Tutana and Loloi display) are a mark of his integrity as well as the sophistication and extent of his cultural connections and standing. The Loloi broken and distributed to commemorate his passing adds to his standing.

Both Gideon Kakabin and the APT9 work that he led, symbolise the moral and spiritual importance of building, valuing and maintaining relationships to the Gunantuna. The Gallery has maintained a commitment to artists and culture of the region for over 25 years through ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, and we are proud to introduce audiences entering GOMA to this important exhibition series with this work and the relational connections it speaks of.

The Amidal Tribes String Band, led by Jackson Pinia in front of Lolois and Tutanas performing a song especially written by Pinia about the APT9 Tutanas. / Video courtesy: Gideon Kakabin

Jackson Pinia leader of the Amidal Tribes String Band with senior band members. Holding on to ceremonial spears, Rumus and an Ulang they stand in front of the APT9 Lolois of Tutanas before they perform a song especially written by Pinia about the Tutanas / Photograph: Gideon Kakabin
Members of the Gunantuna team, Isa Apelis, Jack Apelis, Kini Balnata, William Kakabn, Ben Parai, Msisiel Vaira and Tivila Wartir counting remaining Diwarra on completion of the Loloi’s and Tutana’s, Nangananga, East New Britain, PNG June 2018 / Photograph: Gideon Kakabin
Gunantuna (Toloi people) / Initiates with Diwarra (shell money) fees and Rumu (ceremonial spears) as part of Gunantuna Nidok (initiation) ceremony, East New Britain, July 2017 / Photograph: Gideon Kakabin

Read more on APT9 / Subscribe to YouTube for behind-the-scenes video

APT9 publication

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Feature image detail: Work in progress, Nangananga village, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, June 2018

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The creation of black somo

 

A curator with a deep belief in the ability of art to transform, Jennifer Phipps envisaged a fund that would enable women artists working in the Pacific to engage in projects and learning opportunities, and ensured its existence with a significant bequest.

Oceania Women’s Fund

Visitors to the Queensland Art Gallery’s first exhibition profiling contemporary Pacific textiles in 2003 were greeted by a riot of colour, texture and bold design. The exhibition ‘Island Beats’ displayed textiles created by the region’s women practitioners, a theme that was later explored via ‘The 5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT5, 2006) in the Pacific Textiles Project and subsequently in ‘Threads: Contemporary Textiles and the Social Fabric’ in 2011. The Gallery’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting the vibrant textiles created by Pacific women parallels the development of an equally rich collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander textiles.

QAGOMA’s ability to build on years of commissioning, acquiring and exhibiting the work of women artists in the Pacific has been enhanced by a generous bequest from Jennifer Phipps, allowing for the creation of the Oceania Women’s Fund. A curator with a deep belief in the ability of art to transform, Phipps’s vision was to enable women working in the more under-resourced and remote areas of the Pacific to engage in projects and learning opportunities to build creative capacity.

Inspired by conversations with her friend and former colleague Sana Balai at the National Gallery of Victoria and the work of NGO Pacific Black Box, the resulting Oceania Women’s Fund entrusts QAGOMA with the ongoing role of fostering creative production by women living and working in the region.

Maraana Vamarasi working on Ibe nauri (round mat) 2016, the first work to be supported by the Oceania Women’s Fund / Photograph: Elix Antonio

First project

The first project to be supported by the fund arose from attending the Festival of Pacific Arts in Guam in May 2016, during ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) curatorial research travel. Senior weaver Maraana Vamarasi was part of the delegation from Fiji, exhibiting a beautiful white kutareed ibe nauri (round mat). Conversations revealed that Vamarasi was keen to explore the transformation of this traditionally white-coloured form using the sumptuous black somo (mud-dyed pandanus).

The creation of black somo is an arduous process involving boiling and steeping the pandanus in mud, which imparts not only its characteristic dark tone, but also a supple softness. Highly valued in Fiji, black somo has chiefly associations and is customarily used sparingly in decoration. The black showcases the fine double-weave technique; rather than hide the texture of the weave, the black somo captures the light, emphasising the radiating nature of the mat’s construction and a sense of movement in Vamarasi’s intricate woven patterning. Like a blazing dark sun, it is believed to be the first totally black ibe nauri in existence.

Maraana Vamarasi, Fiji b.1965 / Ibe nauri (round mat) 2016 / Woven somo (black mud-dyed pandanus) fibre / Purchased 2016 with funds from the Oceania Women’s Fund through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist

Alongside research travel funded by the Australia Council for the Arts for the development of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition series, the Oceania Women’s Fund will assist the Gallery in identifying new female artists in the region and exploring their art.

The fund will also consolidate the ways that QAGOMA is able to work with artists and communities in the Pacific, not only by celebrating the richness of their culture through exhibitions and public programming, but also by providing opportunities and platforms for exploring ambitious new aesthetic expressions and collaborations.

Ruth McDougall is Curator, Pacific Art, QAGOMA

Read more on APT9 / Subscribe to YouTube for behind-the-scenes video

Free, and curated for audiences of all ages, ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) profiles artworks by more than 80 artists, groups and projects from over 30 countries, and is presented across the Queensland Art Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art.

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Featured image detail: Maraana Vamarasi, Fiji b.1965 / Ibe nauri (round mat) 2016 / Woven somo (black mud-dyed pandanus) fibre / Purchased 2016 with funds from the Oceania Women’s Fund through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist
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APT9 supporting new media and voices in the Pacific

 

Over the past two years the Gallery and co-curator Sana Balai have been working with artists and communities in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and neighbours in the Solomon Islands archipelago, and four artists from Australia on a major project focused on women’s contemporary creative practice for the upcoming ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9). While lacking contemporary art infrastructure, new expressions of customary practice from weaving to body adornment are alive in these Pacific islands. Young practitioners with interests in digital media are also emerging, keen to engage with the opportunities to tell their own stories to an expanded audience.

Amongst recent initiatives to introduce young people to digital media are Arawa born, Sydney based artist Taloi Havini’s project introducing young people to digital media in Bougainville through the NGO Pacific Black Box launched in 2008, a collaboration with local organisations that has seen youth talk about their experience of the effects of climate change. Havini works across photography, video and installation, her bold and intricately layered works engage with the history and material culture of her birthplace, Bougainville. More recently, sisters Georgianna and Regina Lepping founded a film society in nearby Honiara, bringing together aspiring young filmmakers as a support for film makers across the Solomon Islands archipelago. The group directed film programs at the 2018 Melanesian Festival of Arts in Honiara.

Jesmaine Sakoi Gano filming, Women’s Wealth Workshop / Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre, Chabai, September 2017 / Photograph Ruth McDougall © QAGOMA

The APT9 Women’s Wealth project has been an opportunity for Georgianna Lepping and Buka artist Jesmaine Gano (a participant in the 2008 Pacific Black Box project) to be mentored by Havini. The pair spent ten days with the artists from Bougainville, the Solomon’s Choiseul Province and Australia as part of a workshop project at the Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre, Chabai, Bougainville in September 2017. Gano and Lepping’s footage from the workshop includes demonstrations, documentation of artist’s working, as well as individual artists interviews, documenting not only the diversity of practice but the experiences and aspirations of the projects participants.

Mia Forrest, Georgianna Lepping and Jesmaine Sakoi Gano editing footage Women’s Wealth workshop / QAGOMA, Brisbane, 5 July 2018 / Photograph Joe Ruckli © QAGOMA

Both artists travelled to Brisbane in July 2018 to work with the team at QAGOMA’s Australian Cinémathèque to edit the video for display in APT9. Working in the bio box closely with Mia Forrest, they edited hundreds of hours of footage in addition to synchronizing with audio and adding subtitles to finalise moving image material which will be displayed prominently within the Women’s Wealth exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery for APT9.

Jesmaine Sakoi Gano and Georgianna Lepping Karabing / Film Collective exhibition, IMA, Brisbane, 5 July 2018 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall © QAGOMA
Georgianna Lepping, Elisa Jane Carmichael and Jesmaine Sakoi Gano / Minjerribah, 7 July 2018 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall © QAGOMA

The visit coincided with an exhibition of new video works by Indigenous Australian film Collective Karrabing (also in APT9) at the Institute of Modern Art. Gano and Lepping were also able to travel to Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island) to reconnect with fellow Women’s Wealth artist Elisa Jane Carmichael and family on her Quandamooka people’s country, consolidating strong ties between these young indigenous women.

Both artists will return to Brisbane in November to assist the Gallery’s AV teams and students from the Queensland University of Technology to conduct artist interviews and document the opening weekend programs of APT9.

Ruth McDougall is Curator, Pacific Art, QAGOMA

Read more on APT9 / Subscribe to YouTube for behind-the-scenes video

Taloi Havini (artist) b.1981, Hakö (Haku) people, Nakas clan / Stuart Miller (photographer) b.1983 / Russel and the Panguna mine (from ‘Blood Generation’ series) 2009, printed 2014 / Digital print on Cansen Infinity Pantine Fibre Rag 310gsm paper / Purchased 2014. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artists

APT9 publication

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Feature image detail: Taloi Havini and Imelda Teqae, Women’s Wealth Workshop / Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre, Chabai, September 2017 / Photograph Ruth McDougall © QAGOMA

#APT9QAGOMA

The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture

 

The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FOPAC) takes place every four years. Delegates from the islands peppering this vast ocean congregate to share culture, build alliances and discuss issues facing both their independent nations and the region as a whole. In 2016, the festival was hosted by the Chamorro peoples.

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Marshallese woven flowers / Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, Guam, May 2016 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall
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Woven Marshallese mats / Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, Guam, May 2016 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall
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Mau Power performance / Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, Guam, May 2016 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall

The Chamorro are the indigenous peoples of the Mariana Islands group and, a little like the Samoans, their people are divided between being an independent nation — the Northern Mariana Islands — and a United States territory: Guam.

There is a long military history in this part of the Pacific and a continuing presence of US forces. Officers in uniform controlled traffic, directing vehicles around the festival village. They also policed the accommodation in which delegates from various nations were staying. The overwhelming warmth and hospitality of the Chamorro, however, completely softened this presence, inspiring a sense of shared joy in the coming together of such a wonderfully diverse yet connected group of artists.

With delegations from 27 countries and each ranging from 60 to 160 people, hosting the festival is a major logistical exercise. There were multiple sites for different activities, with the main festival village directly opposite the newly constructed and impressive Museum of Guam. Here, multiple straw-roofed pavilions housed artists who were conducting workshops and selling paintings, sculptures, adornments and textiles to appreciative locals and international festival goers. Highlights in this space were the Solomon Islands pavilion with its opulent displays of the shell ornaments known as ‘women’s wealth’, Taiwan’s demonstrations of indigenous weaving, the reconstruction of a traditional house in the Yap pavilion, and the intricately patterned weavings created by the elegant women of Marshall and Ponphei islands. Discussions with academic Greg Dvorak and poet Kathy Jetnil Kijiner revealed a revival of women’s weaving on these islands in recent times as a form of resistance to cultural imperialism, as well as to histories of exploitation and environmental destruction. Kathy led a young group of poets in spoken word, using this contemporary form of expression to actively develop networks of communication in the region. One had the sense that the model of the Yap house was equally a form of local resistance.

Performances occurred throughout the day on various stages and featured some of the regions most celebrated musicians and performance groups, including the Solomon Islands’ Rosie Delmah, New Caledonia’s Resurrection, New Zealand’s Horomona Horo, Maisey Rika and Rob Ruha, and Australia’s own Mau Power (Patrick Mau). Moving across to the festival bar after dark, they helped raised the energy levels and had many dancing into the night. Situated on a headland that overlooks a strip of expensive hotels, which are interspersed with designer shops, the Chamorro cultural village gave greater insight into local culture. Small displays of historical and contemporary works were beautifully curated in the old hospital buildings by a group of local volunteers. In addition to hosting performances, the village was where you could experience traditional cooking demonstrations and tastings, or engage with a presentation on indigenous medicine and healing practices as well as tattooing.

Brisbane-based Rako Pacifika wowed audiences with their powerful performances, staged in one of the most beautiful buildings in Guam’s capital, Hagåtña, at sunset. It was also wonderful to also see strong new work by New Zealand artists Lisa Reihana, John Ione, Chris Charteris and Maureen Lander alongside contemporaries from the region, including Cook Islands’ tivaevae artist Tungane Broadbent, who worked with the Gallery in 2005. Lots of colleagues from museums in Britain, Taiwan and the United States were busily acquiring work for collections, progressing research and meeting artists, which made for some rich late-night conversations. A daily visit to the artists’ air-conditioned green room at the museum to check on the latest changes in the schedule often led to impromptu meetings that were equally inspiring. Four very full days and much to follow as QAGOMA’s Asian and Pacific Art team starts to map out The Nineth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9).

This is an extract from the Gallery’s Artlines magazine available from the Gallery Store. Keep up to date with the Gallery’s seasonal publication delivered each quarter to QAGOMA Members.

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Guam girl band / Image courtesy: Maryann Talia Pau and the Yap Island performance
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Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, Guam, May 2016 / Photograph: Ruth McDougall

 

Simon Nowep: Maintaining a place for spirits

 

Simon Nowep was one of a group of artists in the village of Kambot, on the Keram River in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea, who received art materials from Australian teacher Helen Dennett in the early 1970s. Dennett recently gifted a number of Nowep’s prints to the Gallery, which greatly enhance our collection of art from the region.

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Simon Nowep, Artist, Papua New Guinea 1902-1984 / Wirui Press, Printer, Papua New Guinea b.est. c.1960s / Birds c.1974 / Screenprint on paper / Gift of Helen and Paul Dennett through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2016 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artists

When Helen Dennett moved to the Sepik River region to teach in the early 1960s, Dennett was inspired by the artists and distinctive art of the region. Her involvement with the Kambot artist group commenced in 1973, when she moved down river with her husband and young child to the Angoram government station: young Kambot artists Zacharias Waybenang and his brother Ignas Keram were living in Angoram temporarily, producing small carvings, and Dennett, who was impressed with their work, provided them with paper and pencils to use and take back to the village. After receiving a drawing by Simon Nowep, Dennett travelled to the village specifically to meet him.

A senior artist in the village, Nowep was taken into the Haus Tambaran (spirit house) at the tender age of two weeks and is said to have been chosen by the elder men to carry the knowledge and ability to produce traditional paintings and stories.1 As Nowep grew up, there was increased contact with foreign influences and, as elsewhere in New Guinea, the introduction of Catholicism and German administrative control resulted in rapid social changes in Kambot. As a young man Nowep was made a catechist for the Catholic mission in the village and, under pressure from the church, witnessed the selling and removing the sculptures from the sacred chambers of the Haus Tambaran. Against this, however, he maintained a passionate interest in sharing traditional stories and art, continuing to paint, and was recognised as the ‘most well-known and competent artist of the 1960s–80s in the Keram River area’.2 When soon-to-be director of Port Moresby’s National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG) Dirk Schmidt arrived in Kambot on a collecting mission for the Museum in 1971, Nowep was commissioned to paint a Haus Tambaran façade featuring Mopul, the paramount ancestor figure. Formally registered in the museum’s collection in 1972, this impressive work became the inspiration for the façade of the existing museum building, which opened in 1977.

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Simon Nowep, Artist, Papua New Guinea 1902-1984 / Wirui Press, Printer, Papua New Guinea b.est. c.1960s / Mopul with two female followers c.1973 / Screenprint on paper / Gift of Helen and Paul Dennett through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2016 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artists

When Dennett arrived in Angoram soon after, Nowep seized the opportunity to share, producing a number of drawings from which Dennett created prints in numbered editions. These were also published in 1975, alongside other Keram River artists such as Manua Mambesi, in the book Mak Bilong Sepik.3

Writing about Nowep in the book she self-published in 2012, Dennett states that:

Simon’s drawings depict a range of traditional subjects mainly ancestor and spirit figures. He liked to work in black and white and said that colours such as red and yellow should only be used to highlight a picture.4

The drawings are largely translated from paintings traditionally done on flattened sections of sago palm leafstalks (known as panggal) and used to adorn the walls and ceilings of the Haus Tambaran.

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Simon Nowep, Artist, Papua New Guinea 1902-1984 / Wirui Press, Printer, Papua New Guinea b.est. c.1960s / Birds Konyim and Deman spirits c.1974 / Screenprint on paper / Gift of Helen and Paul Dennett through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2016 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artists

The prints, recently gifted by Dennett to the Queensland Art Gallery, feature important ancestor and spirit figures such as Mopul and Wain, represented in formal, static poses. Dennett notes that ‘it is not for man to show these figures in action’.5 She also writes:

Bird-headed figures may represent Lawena from the legend of Lawena and Dawena or deman spirits that live in brandama trees from which Kambots make canoes . . . Konyim spirits which have human-type heads, inhabit banyan trees and may harm anyone who damages their home. Konyim and deman are often described as bush spirits, can be either male or female and may act capriciously or kindly towards humans.6

Strong visual statements, the Nowep prints have since been appropriated in numerous contexts as iconic designs of Papua New Guinea, along with a number of other designs published in Dennett’s Mak Bilong Sepik.7

Endnotes
1  Transcript of interview with Maro Nowep (son of Simon Nowep), Kambot village, 2014, given to the author on 10 January 2014 by Sabet Cox (a Nowep family member).
2  Barry Craig, ‘The Masterpieces Exhibition’ in Craig (ed.), Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes, University of Hawaii Press and Crawford Publishing House, 2010, p.52.
3  Helen Dennett and Paul Dennett, Mak Bilong Sepik: A Selection of Designs and Paintings from the Sepik River, Helen Dennett, 1975.
4  Helen Dennett, Simon Nowep of Kambot, Helen Dennett, 2012, p.4.
5  Dennett, p.5
6  Dennett, p.5.
7  Dennett, p.5.

This is an extract from the Gallery’s Artlines magazine available from the Gallery Store. Keep up to date with the Gallery’s seasonal publication delivered each quarter to QAGOMA Members.