The drive along the winding, double-lane highway between Goroka and the Wahgi Valley in Papua New Guinea's Western Highlands offers fleeting glimpses of roadside market stalls built on the top of steep cliffs, and men whipper-snippering the tall kunai grass growing on the roadside verge. In the background, deep blue mountain peaks pierce the horizon. In the busy streets of Kundiawa town — made famous by painter Mathias Kauage (1944–2003) — artist Yuriyal Bridgeman points to two summits in the far distance, and says, ‘Ples blo mi pela’ [our place].¹ 

Born in Redcliffe and educated at the Queensland College of Art, in Brisbane, Bridgeman has for over a decade been travelling ‘home’ to visit his maternal family. During this time, he has developed strong relationships with kin, and with a group of young men living and working in Jiwaka, in the Wahgi Valley, where many members of his family and tribe also reside. Jiwaka is located an hour from Kundiawa, and an even longer distance from Bridgeman’s tribespeople’s homelands in the mountains. Bridgeman’s adopted sister, Alison Wel, shares that their tribal village is the last in the region to have sealed roads, so other villagers often refer to Yuri tribal lands as ‘backpage’. Known for walking the long distance between their mountain home and Kundiawa with big white bags of produce, members of the Yuri tribe are called ‘white horses’. The village’s distance from trading markets and employment and educational opportunities has helped influence Bridgeman’s mother Veronica Gikope and other Yuri family members’ decisions to resettle on land amongst relatives already living in Jiwaka.

On my visit to Jiwaka, in July 2023, I observed that many members of the Yuri extended family are living on and around Bridgeman’s large, verdant block of land. The artist’s cousin, AiI Yopa and his wife, Julie Yopa, care for the flourishing garden and Hausman (men’s house). Getting out of our truck at the front gate to the property, Gikope and I are met by a group of five men. Flashes of brilliant red and yellow, and stark black and white plumes slice through the warm air in an extraordinary array of feathered headdresses. Around them, the voices of another 15 men and their families reverberate with the resonant beating of kundu drums. Holding my hand tight, Gikope is in tears as they give the war cry and we are welcomed to the Hausman.

Our welcoming party includes not only the Yuri of Simbu Province, but also the papa graun (local landowning Jiwaka men) — who wear the long apron and red-and-white face paint of their tribe — and representatives from the Enga and Southern Highlands provinces. Each of these men, who range in age from 25 to 40, is here to make art. Bridgeman stands quietly to one side and urges them forward, one by one, encouraging them to tell their stories. As we listen, we make our way to the Hausman.

Built by Bridgeman’s late cousin Uncle Moses Mote Kirua and several current group members, the Hausman occupies the centre of the land. It is round — a symbol of a traditional house in this area — and clad with woven pit-pit (cane) blinds. Timber sourced from the nearby forest supports the cone-shaped roof of hairlike kunai grass. Men’s shoes are scattered haphazardly around the entrance, which is flanked by two carved tree ferns painted to appear as sentry-like figures called Bopa. Once invited inside, we are greeted by a hushed quiet. The Haus is cool and dark and light streams in through a window opposite the door. Varnished pit-pit blinds cover the floor and feel both smooth and textured underfoot.
 

With the assistance of Haus Yuriyal’s extended family, Mote Kirua led the construction of the roundhouse for Bridgeman to live in, wanting to support his cousin to spend more time with family ‘back home’ — in culture. In return, Bridgeman shared his love for painting and sculpture, as well as a keen interest to learn more about the art of the Yuri. This led to Bridgeman involving his family and friends in the creation of new work — the earliest of which were dynamic performances of mock fights that directly referenced the ethnographic films of Highlands warriors engaged in the ‘theatre’ of war.²

Bridgeman’s house quickly became a meeting place for extended family members of the Yuri, as well as local custodial landowners, who wished to learn about their culture and escape outside conflicts. Of particular interest was the kuman (fighting shields), which had been crafted by Yuri men for generations, including Bridgeman’s maternal grandfather, Muka Gelua. Writing about this early period of the Haus, Bridgeman has shared:

I first consulted with Mori Kaupa, senior community member and Yuri man, about working on a kuman project in the house with a number of cousins and uncles. At our first meeting he had gathered about thirty participants. We spoke about shield designs specific to our Yuri tribe heritage and set about creating upward of twenty personalised kuman. The sessions were part discussion, exchange and application. Each individual was invited to draw and colour three designs each, after which we would compare and discuss before finally selecting the design favoured by the group. Resources and logistical issues saw us abandon the option of using traditional timber, in favour of the readily available and lightweight plywood. This distinction between materials suggested that we were no longer aspiring to replicate the kuman as an artefact or defensive weapon loaded with violent histories; we were now in a new tradition of storytelling through kuman paintings.³

The Yuri, like many of their neighbouring tribes, customarily paint their shields with designs that mark an individual’s connection to their tribal lineage and place. When brought together as a group — and in close range, such as in times of battle — the bold colours and geometric patterns can confuse and disorient. Though intertribal warfare remains an ongoing fact of life for many in the Highlands, decorated timber shields no longer offer effective protection against bullets and other modern fighting methods, so the Yuri and neighbouring tribes largely abandoned them.

A similar process of loss affects the transferral of knowledge and cultural value involved in men’s collective shield-making practices. Central to these is the Hausman, a traditional roundhouse, in which Yuri men gather to discuss tribal business, share knowledge, conduct initiation ceremonies, or simply feel connected in a safe space. Focused on the creation of culturally inspired art, Bridgeman’s Hausman has become an important space for the men of Haus Yuriyal to develop a positive sense of personal and cultural identity. On my visit, the men are working, for the first time, with paints their ancestors would have created from traditional materials gathered from the natural environment — beautiful raw umber and earthy ochre, deep charcoal black, and even plant-derived red and blue. They have gathered to collectively discuss ideas for their presentation in the Asia Pacific Triennial, to continue to explore different ways of working with their growing repertoire of personalised kuman designs, and to showcase their culture to their international visitor.

Bridgeman quietly leads the group, encouraging them to share more stories, guiding them in developing their designs, and providing the materials (paint, paper and plywood) they need to translate them into vibrant paintings. The men have also been experimenting with the creation of their own textiles, embroidering brightly coloured yarns — also used by their wives for creating bilum (string bags) — onto the backs of five-kilogram rice bags. The resulting paintings and textiles are stunning, with the men’s bold use of bright colour and geometric designs creating dazzling optical effects.
 

While the men work on the floor of the Hausman, Alison Wel sits quietly. She has been creating a series of drawings about the village from stories of the Yuri that she plans to translate, with the assistance of Julie Yopa and other trusted women of the clan, into large textiles created using the same looping technique as the bilum bag. Like the kuman, the bilum is a culturally significant item for the Yuri and is ubiquitous throughout Papua New Guinea. Looped by women, the designs worked into the bags’ open structure traditionally provided vital information about the wearer’s clan, tribe and gender. Today, they are still worn by Highlands women to collect goods from the market and to gather fruit and vegetables from the garden; they are also worn by Highlands men as part of initiation ceremonies. The adoption of the bilum by other cultural groups has coincided with changes in materials, techniques and surface design, even form, with the looping technique being used by some women to create bilum fashion garments.⁴ Incorporating blocks of text and images, Wel’s drawings and their planned transformation into large-scale narrative textiles represents one of the most ambitious and directions for this traditional form.⁵

As the days pass and the men and Wel busily create their work, Yopa, Gikope and I spend time in the lush gardens surrounding the Hausman. More than just a source of food, the gardens embody knowledge about the natural environment of the Highlands. Like many aspects of this part of the world, the garden is functional, but also beautiful, with tall stakes of winding beans interspersed with bright, colourful flowers. Spiky leaves of rows of pineapples are broken only by the swollen form of the golden fruit, while tall stands of slender sugar cane, broad-leafed taro and banana palms emerge alongside the graceful fern-like leaves of the dini.

Fittingly, an integral part of Haus Yuriyal’s display in the Asia Pacific Triennial is a garden, designed by Gikope to articulate the centrality of subsistence agriculture to the lives and culture of the Yuri. Gikope has mapped out the framework for her vibrant, living artwork using stands of sugar cane, cooking bananas and taro, with the exchange of sugar cane being an important gesture of peace and unity in Yuri culture.

Gikope has also curated a program of events for the Kamkau Ike (Haus Toktok) component of the Haus Yuriyal display. Created for speeches accompanying important events — such as the campaign launch for a political candidate, the opening of a new school, or ceremonial events — these highly ornamented structures have become an important part of Yuri culture. The bilas (ornamentation) of the structure in the Triennial has involved an extended group of fathers and uncles living in the distant Yuri village who have created pit-pit blinds, which have been woven with a traditional diamond-shaped design. The Kamkau Ike provides the focal point for Haus Yuriyal’s presentation that also incorporates a Piksahaus (picture house), in which audiences can listen to the sounds of the Yuri and watch videos of the clan in their mountain homes.

Haus Yuriyal’s project for the Triennial began long before the kuman paintings or the Kamkau Ike and its bilas were completed, with Gikope planting varieties of sugar cane, banana and taro in the Sculpture Courtyard of the Queensland Art Gallery in late 2023. Gikope’s garden was then extended with the planting of other crops in the months leading up to the opening of the exhibition, allowing time for them to grow, ahead of the men arriving to complete the structural components of their work, and their collective journey.