A certain harvest
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
“In my traditional language I asked them to come with me, to come with me, to make my work stronger”. Alick Tipoti
We leave the River Cam and go now to a very different body of water, the blue and turquoise sea with its coral cays and volcanic islands of the Torres Strait so many thousands of miles away.
The River Cam flows gently through our little village. The ancient houses huddled around it as if for a secure purpose. In the days when Andrea and I lived here it was still, more or less a village in the traditional sense. The tiny village shop, the residents who only travelled into the nearest town on special occasions and had never made the journey to London, an hour’s train trip to the south.
There was the walk across the fields to the neighbouring village and its pub where the beer was still kept in barrels in the cellar. For the ancient landlord, the ordering of a pint meant a climb down a ladder and aprecarious climb back clutching the precious liquid. We did however manage to suppress our guilt, eagerly awaiting the result of all this exertion.
Gradually, change began to impact village life, better access because of better roads and faster trains, the actors, the stock brokers, the frantic activity of renovating these precious old houses. No more going into the neighbour’s house and shooing off the chickens, ducks and even geese from the kitchen table amid loud clucking and flying feathers, before sitting down to have a cup of tea.
We were only a short drive from Cambridge and the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, full of the culture of the Torres Strait Islands.
We leave the River Cam and go now to a very different body of water, the blue and turquoise sea with its coral cays and volcanic islands of the Torres Strait so many thousands of miles away.
As Victorian England stirred in its increasing industrial wealth and the desire to know about other places far away, ripples from this stirring lapped on distant shores and changed things forever. For the Torres Strait Islanders so far away, these ripples were to change their lives and their material culture.
The Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology holds a collection of artefacts from the Torres Strait. These works were collected by Alfred Haddon, his first expedition was in 1888, the second in 1898-99. In total around 1,550 works were collected. Haddon continued collecting from these islands at a distance, sometimes commissioning new works. By the latter of the two expeditions Haddon had commented on the increasing difficulty of discovering more traditional objects, particularly such things as turtle shell masks. Some of the works collected are housed in the British Museum, but most remain in Cambridge.
The second half of the nineteenth century brought with it great change for these islands, changes that transformed many customs and beliefs. With the missionaries and with the Coming of the Light came the collectors of cultural artefacts, the enquirers of their age, to harvest Torres Strait Island culture for western museums.
Torres Strait artist and internationally recognised printmaker, Alick Tipoti:
“We speak our language. I am 35 years old and I am blessed that my father and my grandfather taught me the language and I speak it fluently, I am so proud of it. Language is the core of the culture".
"We are known today as Torres Strait Islanders after Captain Torres. Captain Torres and Captain Cook, they came through Zenadth Kes (the Torres Strait). That is when we discovered them. They didn’t discover us, we definitely discovered them”.
Ken Thaiday Snr, The sea, the feather and the dance machine, is a man who makes things move. Ken's masks can be complicated and ingenious machines with pulleys and leavers. Sometimes these works are more traditional and include Alag masks.
In Cairns, North Queensland, now some years ago, the Director of Canopy Artspace Michael Kershaw had this to say:
“When I have accompanied Torres Strait Islander artists tov iew these objects in Cambridge the impact is extraordinary, you can almost seethe hairs stand up on the back of their neck”.
Dennis Nona, artist re-interpreter of Torres Strait Island culture also stood in the museum in Cambridge.
“When I went to the Cambridge Museum in the UK, I saw masks from the Torres Strait Islands and they really inspired me – all the masks that were in there. I was standing in the middle of them and just looking around and they were just staring at me. I based on the Parul* – all the faces of the masks – almost all my ancestors were looking at me and I was just observing. At the same time I was sitting inspired by the spirits. In my traditional language I asked them to come with me, to come with me, to make my work stronger. It is our traditional custom when you see these things, ancient things, you stand there and observe them and then you ask them to come with you in a good way, good spirit to help you in your work. So that time I stood among that artwork there’s all those faces – I just draw them out, they were lying inboxes”.
All these artists are a part of the resurgence and re-interpretation of Torres Strait Islander culture through contemporary art practice now occurring across the Torres Strait. And once more their work is being collected by art galleries and museums around the world.
*That particular artwork refers to Parul (faces), an etching by Dennis Nona published in Brisbane in 2006 and part of the Creative cowboy films collection.
The River Cam flows gently through our little village. The ancient houses huddled around it as if for a secure purpose. In the days when Andrea and I lived here it was still, more or less a village in the traditional sense. The tiny village shop, the residents who only travelled into the nearest town on special occasions and had never made the journey to London, an hour’s train trip to the south.
There was the walk across the fields to the neighbouring village and its pub where the beer was still kept in barrels in the cellar. For the ancient landlord, the ordering of a pint meant a climb down a ladder and aprecarious climb back clutching the precious liquid. We did however manage to suppress our guilt, eagerly awaiting the result of all this exertion.
Gradually, change began to impact village life, better access because of better roads and faster trains, the actors, the stock brokers, the frantic activity of renovating these precious old houses. No more going into the neighbour’s house and shooing off the chickens, ducks and even geese from the kitchen table amid loud clucking and flying feathers, before sitting down to have a cup of tea.
We were only a short drive from Cambridge and the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, full of the culture of the Torres Strait Islands.
We leave the River Cam and go now to a very different body of water, the blue and turquoise sea with its coral cays and volcanic islands of the Torres Strait so many thousands of miles away.
As Victorian England stirred in its increasing industrial wealth and the desire to know about other places far away, ripples from this stirring lapped on distant shores and changed things forever. For the Torres Strait Islanders so far away, these ripples were to change their lives and their material culture.
The Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology holds a collection of artefacts from the Torres Strait. These works were collected by Alfred Haddon, his first expedition was in 1888, the second in 1898-99. In total around 1,550 works were collected. Haddon continued collecting from these islands at a distance, sometimes commissioning new works. By the latter of the two expeditions Haddon had commented on the increasing difficulty of discovering more traditional objects, particularly such things as turtle shell masks. Some of the works collected are housed in the British Museum, but most remain in Cambridge.
The second half of the nineteenth century brought with it great change for these islands, changes that transformed many customs and beliefs. With the missionaries and with the Coming of the Light came the collectors of cultural artefacts, the enquirers of their age, to harvest Torres Strait Island culture for western museums.
Torres Strait artist and internationally recognised printmaker, Alick Tipoti:
“We speak our language. I am 35 years old and I am blessed that my father and my grandfather taught me the language and I speak it fluently, I am so proud of it. Language is the core of the culture".
"We are known today as Torres Strait Islanders after Captain Torres. Captain Torres and Captain Cook, they came through Zenadth Kes (the Torres Strait). That is when we discovered them. They didn’t discover us, we definitely discovered them”.
Ken Thaiday Snr, The sea, the feather and the dance machine, is a man who makes things move. Ken's masks can be complicated and ingenious machines with pulleys and leavers. Sometimes these works are more traditional and include Alag masks.
In Cairns, North Queensland, now some years ago, the Director of Canopy Artspace Michael Kershaw had this to say:
“When I have accompanied Torres Strait Islander artists tov iew these objects in Cambridge the impact is extraordinary, you can almost seethe hairs stand up on the back of their neck”.
Dennis Nona, artist re-interpreter of Torres Strait Island culture also stood in the museum in Cambridge.
“When I went to the Cambridge Museum in the UK, I saw masks from the Torres Strait Islands and they really inspired me – all the masks that were in there. I was standing in the middle of them and just looking around and they were just staring at me. I based on the Parul* – all the faces of the masks – almost all my ancestors were looking at me and I was just observing. At the same time I was sitting inspired by the spirits. In my traditional language I asked them to come with me, to come with me, to make my work stronger. It is our traditional custom when you see these things, ancient things, you stand there and observe them and then you ask them to come with you in a good way, good spirit to help you in your work. So that time I stood among that artwork there’s all those faces – I just draw them out, they were lying inboxes”.
All these artists are a part of the resurgence and re-interpretation of Torres Strait Islander culture through contemporary art practice now occurring across the Torres Strait. And once more their work is being collected by art galleries and museums around the world.
*That particular artwork refers to Parul (faces), an etching by Dennis Nona published in Brisbane in 2006 and part of the Creative cowboy films collection.
No items found.
Related Stories
Brian Robinson: men+GODS
Brian Robinson tells Peter Hylands about his men + GODS exhibition (KickArts, Cairns, North Queensland, 2012). Brian’s exhibition takes us on a visual journey through a world of mythology, a journey of tension between men and Gods.
Read the full story
A Saylor’s life
Bully Saylor and Peter Hylands are on Erub in the Torres Strait close to the corner of Australia’s north eastern boundary and close by the Great Barrier Reef and New Guinea.
Read the full story
The Master Printer
As the rain hammers down on the streets and buildings of tropical Cairns it was once again time to visit master printer Theo Tremblay in his print workshop Editions Tremblay NFP (no fixed press) at Canopy Artspace.
Read the full story