Tourist Art in the Sepik River:Aesthetic Expressions of Changing

Identity

Tambunum Village (Iatmul people), 1988-1990Wewak, 2008

Eric Kline SilvermanDepts. American Studies and Human Development

Wheelock CollegeBoston, MA USA

esilverman@wheelock.eduMarch 2009

The Melanesian Discoverer tourist ship

The Melanesian Discoverer at Tambunum village—and

a villager in a dugout canoe

The Melanesian Discoverer--and a woman in her canoe setting fish traps

Another tourist ship: The Sepik Spirit

Tourists walking the main path in Tambunum village (a village of the Iatmul people), looking over art and artifacts. You can see pottery, crocodile-shaped canoe prows, shell ornaments, wooden masks and animals, and a small stool

More art for sale

Tradition and modernity: baskets with Christian crosses, both now equally part of local Sepik identity.

Traditionally, the crocodile symbolized a clan spirit. Today, the crocodile represents regional “Sepik” identity—something that emerged only during the colonial administration of the country. That these crocodiles are crawling out of the mask symbolizes the still-unfolding formation of this new form of identity.

New styles of masks—having absolutely no traditional equivalent. The animals are all emerging out of (or receding into) the mask—they are being eaten (or born from the mouths) of other animals. If an animal in some sense represents a person, then the imagery would seem to express the unfinished emergence, transformation, and creation of new forms of local identities.

New, touristic masks often have multiple faces, some of which are typically either hidden or seen only from one perspective. This new style would seem to suggest that personhood or identity today is multiple and complex. Some facets of identity are important in some contexts; other aspects of identity are important in other contexts.

More multiple faces (and a crocodile crawling out of the mouth of the mask on the left). Traditional masks did not have these multiple faces, suggesting that they must have some relevance to the contemporary era.

Note, too, that each carver creates his own artistic styles. From this angle, the art no longer represent the group or clan but, instead, modern individualism.

Different perspectives reveal different images. An almost invisible bird from a frontal view, becomes obvious from the side.

Moreover, note that the bird, like an M.C. Escher print, moves from 2-dimensions to 3-dimensions.

Ambiguous crocodiles—symbolizing Sepik identity. Eaten? Regurgitating? Birthing? What? Clearly, an incomplete emergence or transformation of personhood.

In an effort to offer tourists something unique (capitalist competition heightens individualism), this man asked his affines (in-laws) from another language group if he could carve their art. To ensure success in a modern setting, he drew on traditional social relations.

Here, a younger man sought playfully to intimidate and shock the tourists—to make them uneasy. He did so, we might say, in order to challenge Western power and hegemony: to make local people, however symbolically, in control of a situation in which the tourists (and Westerners more generally) dominate.

The object, too, was aimed mainly at Western (read: white) women, and reflects partly some of the images of women that Western media sends to Papua New Guinea and the rest of the world.

More masks with multiple faces—each mask a unique creation, often by combining traditional motifs in new ways. These masks thus symbolize the very modern value of individualism.

Iatmul did not traditionally use dream imagery in their art. But in the 1970s, one man did: these are “dream” masks. Why did he innovate this way? So his masks would stand apart. Here, again, capitalism fosters a sense of competitive individualism.

Masked figures wearing masks: which is the real face, the real identity? What, these figures seem to say, is the real self today? Is there a real, stable sense of identity?

The PNG national emblem—with Catholic slogans in English. These carvings communicate that local people are still local—they still do traditional activities (such as carving). But they are also as modern as we Westerners: they are Christian, literate, and members of a modern nation-state.

Lots of carvers create their own variations of the national emblem. These works, too, communicate new, modern notions of individualism. But this general style also communicates the villagers are trying to figure out their place in the modern nation-state, and the meaning of the nation-state, on their own local terms.

More local and individual variations of the national emblem.

PNG emblems I saw in 2009—now, in a sense, with a greater sense of vision or recognition: literally, a panorama.

National emblem, above a face with a tongue that forms a bird whose wings recede into the two-dimensional plane of the mask. On the right is a traditional shell valuable (swapping tradition for modern currency!) On the left, a man has carved a style that is not even local to this part of the Sepik. Why? So his works stand apart.

Notice the symmetries, the sense of balance. On one hand, these carvings represent in tourist art a very traditional sense of dualism that local folks used to organize their experiences (for example, Iatmul folks tend to divide all groups into two’s, which they call older-brother and younger-brother). On the other hand, though, these carvings might express the desire for balance in a world that is chaotic, rapidly changing, and vastly unequal.

(notice, too, the uncertain boundaries between birds and face—a comment on the uncertain boundaries of everything else in their fast changing world?

Here is a rare example of asymmetry in tourist (or traditional) art. Perhaps it represents a man’s unique ‘view’ of contemporary reality? An ‘honest’ expression of the asymmetries of the modern world system?

Another rare expression of aesthetic asymmetry—but one that also adheres to traditional dualism (which is itself a form of symmetry and balance). Perhaps yearning for equality and the recognition that the world is unequal today?

Note, too, the evocative sense of movement in this carving: Could these motifs represent the very idea of change, flux, and instability?

Lots of carvers today tend to place their signature on their art. Not only does this convey a sense of modern individuality, but the men tend to write their English (baptismal) names, not their local Iatmul names.

This object expresses a ‘conversation’ between a localized version of national identity (on the left, which is drawn from the national emblem) and regional identity (the crocodile on the right). The ‘conversation,’ moreover, is circumscribed by literate tokens of modern identity: names, date, and a post office (PTO Wewak; Wewak is the provincial capital town).

A new style popular in 2008: local variation of national emblem, with English greeting, invocation of God, artist’s name, and a clock!

A young man, in his late teens. When I last saw him (1994), he was still a kid. He, too, holds a new style of carving: the Sepik clock. Symbolically, this style conveys that, indeed, it is a new time in Papua New Guinea.

He wants to go to college.

Picture Credits:

All photographs taken by Eric Silverman except:

“Melanesian Discoverer tourist ship”: http://www.igr.gov.pg/md.jpeg

“Sepik Spirit”: http://www.pngtours.com/photos.html