Much has been written about the structure of male/female relationships within Sepik communities. The shape of the Abelam korumbo replicates the wings of the large bird, Kwatbil, sheltering a woman during labour, bringing together the creation of this architectural form with the origin of human birth.⁴ What is significant here is that the towering gabled Abelam structures are considered to initiate a framework that endures; their creation and use are both ephemeral and have longevity. By working closely with the Abelam and Kwoma artists, from initial concepts through to the final documentation of individual paintings and carvings depicting totems and important ancestral figures, we gained a strong sense that the creation of a men’s spirit house, and the art associated with it, is a participatory process through which important social relationships are initiated and maintained. The creation of paintings and carvings is also a primary avenue for telling stories relating to clan totems and cosmological beliefs.

As an example of this narrative role, the spectacular ceiling created by the seven Kwoma artists for APT7 comprises some 200 painted panels, each depicting an artist’s clan totems. These designs are predominantly non-figurative but nevertheless depict animal, plant or spirit entities. The artists readily recognise them by having either observed the animals and plants in their local environment, or because the design is associated with a myth belonging to their respective clans. The repetition of these designs helps educate younger members about their surroundings and their place within their community’s social structure. Such knowledge is augmented through the process of carving poles, which reference stories relating to the important ancestral sikiyawas (spirits), the subjects of many of a clan’s designs and stories.

The most important post in the APT7 Kwoma structure has been carved by senior male Wanyi (cassowary) clan members and features their sikiyawas. The overall work or structure carries significant status and is understood as nominally belonging to them. Rather than dilute the significance of this ownership, collaboration with members of the Teki (dog), Humikwa (bird of paradise) and Guisemb (sea eagle) clans is seen as an expression of the Wanyi elders’ political prowess in initiating beneficial relations with other groups.⁵
 

Thinking about these ephemeral Sepik structures, then, we can see that the building does not require longevity. What is valued and preserved are the ancestors’ presence and cultural knowledge, as well as the relationship structures that flow from them. The practice of making and decorating these buildings, which we call art, engages new generations in this process, and the acquisition of knowledge and the status associated with this. It also strengthens interdependent relations with others (human and ancestral) as well as with the local environment. As with the act of remembering, which never recurs in exactly the same way, the form which knowledge takes may also change. Different subjectivities and the historical pressure of certain events or outside influences all impact on how individuals or communities receive, understand and use knowledge.

In the Sepik and New Britain, the impact of colonisation, the introduction of Christianity and, more recently, increased tourism, all impact on the ways in which cultural knowledge is received and used. Today, there is a strong desire to develop relationships outside close-knit village circles in order to engage with the opportunities that tourism provides for articulating distinctive cultural attributes and developing a cash economy. One outcome within Kwoma communities has been the exploration of figurative designs. Another, more widespread, change has been the adoption of new materials capable of creating even more visually powerful effects.

These changes are evident in the works created for APT7, where we see innovative figurative designs in the Kwoma ceiling utilising commercially available paints and supports. The spectacular masks created by Sulka, Tolai, Baining, Arawe and Coastal Arapesh groups also explore the potential of combining locally sourced natural materials such as feathers, split cane and leaves, with commercially available pigments and objects. Like the Kwoma and Abelam spirit houses, many of the masks featured are ephemeral, either because their organic materials have only a short life span or they are purposefully used on only one occasion. Directly associated with powerful spirit beings or forces, the masks created by the Baining and Sulka, when used in performance, evoke the potency of these beings and, in their makers’ opinion, must be destroyed after they have served their ritual purpose, for the safety of the community. Colours and materials are carefully chosen according to their transformative impact. In this context, the lurid, shimmering brightness of synthetic red paints and contemporary materials associated with wealth, transformation, or power, are as readily adopted as traditional materials and colours linked with the power to animate the works’ overall designs.

Other masks are created for use in mortuary ceremonies or initiation rites, and often have attributes referring to particular individuals or ancestors (both human and non-human), including in one group of Tolai tokatokoi, the saintly form of the Christian Virgin. The artists responsible for creating these works are predominantly male and have been through an initiation process that equips them to engage with ancestral forces and spirit beings. For example, the Iatmul artists from Yenchen in the Middle Sepik, all have ‘bites’ cut into their skin — like those one would receive from the ancestral Mavetgowi (saltwater crocodile) or Palengowi (freshwater crocodile) — indicating their having been ‘eaten’ by spirit crocodiles, symbolising the transition from childhood to adulthood. Like this initiation, the making of masks is collaborative and part of an extended ceremony in which, at different stages, the whole community may be involved. As such, the masks act as conduits of spiritual power and knowledge, and important communal relations.
 

The masks and commissioned structures created for APT7 are contemporary expressions of kastom. The artists have been cast into multiple spaces and new relationships — from the New Britain artists performing complex ceremonies at the National Mask Festival in Kokopo, to the Abelam and Kwoma artists travelling to Brisbane to create the work, finalise installation design, and meet members of the Brisbane community. Although many of the works may look different — having been created in brightly coloured acrylics and utilising found materials — and may have greater longevity, their purpose as a vehicle to honour ancestral spirits, transfer knowledge, and create and maintain relationships, has been maintained.

Writing about Abelam art, the anthropologist Anthony Forge observed:

Abelam art is about relationships, not about things . . . One of the main functions of the initiation system with its repetitive exposures of initiates to art is, I would suggest, to teach young men to see the art, not so that he may consciously interpret it but so that he is directly affected by it.⁶

Such insights have influenced the installation of the Papua New Guinean masks and architectural structures in this exhibition.⁷ Moving from the Gallery of Modern Art’s lofty entrance, down the long, light-filled space of the central Long Gallery, audiences are taken on a journey. We encounter art aiming to make the greatest possible aesthetic impact, from the vertiginous scale of the architectural structures rising out of nowhere, through the dramatic use of saturated colour, contrasting patterns and textures found on the masks, to the optical dynamism of the Kwoma koromb ceiling. Such a journey is always a social process and our awareness of its importance has guided the way we chose to work with these artists and their communities developing this work and its installation here in Brisbane.⁸

One particular feature of Kwoma culture are bilums especially created to establish relations independent of kinship.⁹ Before they departed, the Kwoma artists undertook a special bilum ceremony, extending their kinship ties to us here — the bilum’s looped strings, circled above our heads, were echoed by the artists moving around our small group, looping a new circle of relations. During a conversation about this ceremony, Rex Maukos explained, ‘now you are one of us, you are looking after our culture. We are connected’. To return, then, to Dr Andrew Moutu’s comments about the korombo skeleton, it is the persistence of a culture, created and maintained through strong relations with others, that these artists seek to preserve and nurture through their art. This seems a wonderful place from which to set out on such a journey.