A Kanak artist from New Caledonia, Micheline Néporon tells stories about the everyday lives of her people by incising drawings of figures into the warm, golden surfaces of bamboo. Like a comic strip or series of film stills, figures and stories traverse the length of pieces of bamboo. Capturing everyday routines, Néporon’s carvings also reflect on the cycle of life, including stories of birth, death and love, alongside the particular challenges that the Kanak people face today. Amongst the scenes are depictions of road accidents and the damaging results of alcohol delinquency, which reflect the artist’s deep concern with the high rates of youth mortality in her community.

While taking art classes in the early 1980s at the newly established Office culturel scientifique et technique canaque (OCSTC) in Noumea, Néporon was encouraged to explore the expressive potential of her own material culture. She was drawn to the intricate engravings on nineteenth-century kare u ta (incised bamboo) in the collection of the Musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie (Museum of New Caledonia). Customarily carved by one or more male artists, kare u ta were primarily used by older males and those of chiefly status. Stuffed with herbs, they were believed to provide the owner with protection from sorcery.

The art of creating kare u ta was abandoned in the early decades of the twentieth century as indigenous Kanak were forced by French colonisers to adopt Western modes of expression. Returning to New Caledonia in 1992 from a short time studying in France, Néporon began to rediscover the tools and scorch-marking techniques of this lost art form. Néporon’s kare u ta are evocative reminders of an important time in recent Kanak history, as well as compelling portraits of everyday and ceremonial life.