A Sea of Islands — Masterpieces from Oceania at Museum Volkenkunde
A SEA OF ISLANDS
Masterpieces from Oceania
February 21, 2020 — August 23, 2020
Made up of thousands of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Oceania covers more than a third of the Earth’s surface, extending from New Guinea to Easter Island, and from New Zealand to Hawaii. The ocean borders the islands, but it has also always been the thing that connects them.
This exhibition focuses on the islanders’ connection with the water and their huge resourcefulness. It features objects of breathtaking beauty, from canoes several metres long and ingenious navigation tools to statues and jewellery.
It also includes contemporary art, with eye-catching pieces like the live-action video by Lisa Reihana and an installation by George Nuku.
Remembrance
In Oceania ancestors are a source of power and identity. They are commemorated in various forms of art. Subjects like history, remembrance, coping with loss and changes to the environment are also key elements in the work of contemporary artists.
Ancestors play an important role in Oceania. The major rituals associated with death are the most important moments of commemoration, marking an end to the mourning period, after which the community can resume normal daily life.
In Oceania, festivals and rituals have always been used as a way of enhancing people’s sense of community, and continue to do so to this day. Festivals and rituals make a place home.
In Oceania, the rhythm and routine of daily life – fishing, tending the garden and, nowadays, office work – is occasionally disrupted by spectacular festivities. People travel from far and wide to take part. The preparations – making items for use in the festivities, setting up the festival site and preparing special food – can take weeks, even months sometimes. Music, dances performed in spectacular costumes, and impressive masks celebrate the life of the community and commemorate the dead.
In One of the Islands you will find plenty of contemporary art. Bottled Ocean 2120 by artist George Nuku is a real eye-catcher. The installation is made entirely from recycled plastic. The work expresses both hope and a warning for the future.
The great artwork by George Nuku in Room 2 is an imaginary world in the year 2120. Ice sheets have melted, the earth has flooded. The life forms, strange and enchantingly beautiful, adapted to the ubiquity of plastic. The artist:
“The problem of plastic bottles and garbage is, as we all know, worldwide and terrible…. I try to find a way for myself to learn to love this material ... to respect it.”
Nuku does this by considering plastic as a precious metal with unique properties.
Bottled Ocean 2120 is a unique collaboration between artist and audience. The project has different phases: the start was the collection of thousands of plastic bottles. This was followed by a cleaning campaign thanks to the efforts of enthusiastic volunteers. And then Nuku went to work with adults and children to turn the bottles into jellyfish, fish and coral.
Water is everywhere in Oceania. The ocean is both a barrier and a link between the islands and their people. Boats are therefore vital. Knowledge of navigation routes and ocean currents is also important.
In the first exhibition space visitors get a close-up view of a number of full-size and model canoes. This is where it all started, when the first people travelled from Southeast Asia to Oceania by canoe thousands of years ago. With the exception of those who went to live in the mountains, all these people developed a close bond with the ocean. Their canoes allowed them to trade and exchange with other islands, and also to engage in warfare. People fished both in the ocean and in rivers.
This gallery also contains a series of objects associated with seafaring, from canoe ornaments and paddles of various kinds to fishing equipment and historical drawings.
Gifts are an important aspect of encounters between the people of Oceania, and for maintaining social networks. It is very common for gifts to be exchanged during important festivities. Islanders also attempted to engage in a productive relationship with uninvited guests, like the Westerners who arrived in the past, by presenting them with certain objects.
Artist Lisa Reihana
‘In Pursuit of Venus (infected)’, a panoramic video work by artist Lisa Reihana, is an impressive interpretation of the wallpaper produced in 1804 by French businessman Joseph Dufour. The 20-panel wallpaper design, known as ‘Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique’, demonstrates the fascination with the voyages of discovery to Oceania undertaken in the 18th-century by Captains Cook, de Bougainville and de la Pérouse. Two hundred years later Reihana has brought the wallpaper to life, in a work featuring peoples from all over Oceania. By including encounters with Europeans she shows the complexity of cultural identity and colonisation.
There is a special story associated with this feather cloak. This fabulous garment is evidence of a meeting that never took place. In 1823 Liholiho, Kamehameha II, and his wife Queen Kamāmalu led a high-ranking Hawaiian delegation on a diplomatic visit to Britain. But before they had a chance to meet the British King, George IV, and present their valuable feather cloaks to him, the king and queen succumbed to measles. This impressive gift, used to enter into diplomatic relationships with European monarchs, remained in Britain.
