NZ museum helps Chamorro art spread south

Transcript

The Te Papa Museum in New Zealand is collecting Chamorro exhibits from Guam in an effort to share Micronesian culture with the South Pacific.

Te Papa is collaborating with Humanities Guahan to showcase indigenous art.

Humanities Guahan's executive director Kimberlee Kihleng says the project is the first of its kind in the region.

Dr Kihleng told Koro Vaka'uta it would promote a presence of Chamorro art and expand efforts to reflect Guam's place in the larger Pacific community.

KIMBERLEE KIHLENG:  People in New Zealand don't know that much about the Northern Pacific, about Micronesia, so it's really just great for us to be able to contribute material objects from Guam and eventually from other parts of Micronesia that really represent contemporary indigenous cultures.  It would be really important to have these as part of the Te Papa collection and then eventually exhibited so people in New Zealand can have a taste of what our cultures and traditions are here in Micronesia.  

KORO VAKA'UTA:  There is a real familiarity with South Pacific art and culture here in New Zealand, not so much the Northern Pacific.  Are there parts of it that people will relate to and link with and also what are the key differences that people might sight when they see these pieces.

KK:  Obviously there are traditions and cultural practices that are shared throughout the Pacific.  For this first co-collecting project we are collecting and curating a small body of work from a carver of body ornamentation.  As you know, throughout the Pacific body adornment was critically important traditionally, historically but as well as in contemporary times.  We have some wonderful pieces from a master carver of shell and beads.  That is one practice that I think is very pan-Pacific, using shell and beads and bone.  We are also going to have some weavers represented that are well respected here in our community and they have really taken traditional weaving and really innovated them.  Things like making pandanas bow-ties or pandanas bottle sleeves so once again a very pan-Pacific, artistic and aesthetic tradition that is being innovated and recreated in various forms.  That will be very recognisable but also very innovative and different.  Then we also have a long tradition of blacksmithing in Guam which was really introduced in the Spanish period with iron.  Of course Chamorros always made tools for farming and carving and fishing but with the introduction of iron, of course this tradition of blacksmithing developed in Guam which is a very long one, several centuries old.  So that would be something that may be very unique to Guam and the Chamorro people and it's become a very refined and beautiful tradition that has a lot of contemporary innovations and creativity.