Etapa de ejecución del programa didáctico para la

Both permanent and temporary exhibitions of Polynesian material in the British Museum in the twenty-first century have brought attention once more to the early collections, demonstrating a range of agendas in doing so. The decision to reunite the ethnographic collections with the main collections in the late 1990s had led to the closure of the Museum of Mankind. New galleries were created at Bloomsbury for the display of the North American, Mexican and African collections, but not for a Pacific gallery. However, there were opportunities for the display of Oceanic objects in other permanent galleries where mixed material was on display. Preparations were in

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A 1970 Museum catalogue by Keeper William Fagg titled The Tribal Image: Wooden Figure Sculpture of the World epitomises this approach – Fagg was assisted by sculptor Leon Underwood, who ensured that ‘No piece has been included which he felt to be less worthy of an exhibition chosen by sculptural standards alone’ (Fagg, 1970, p.1). One of the Hawaiian figures included in the exhibition (c.1970-75) is described as having the qualities of ‘sculptural excellence... of the universal kind’ (cat no. 80).

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progress for the reopening of ‘the King’s Library’, a gallery which had been built as a

library to house the book collection of King George III (which had been moved with the collections of the British Library to the St Pancras site in the 1990s). This vast gallery was to be refurbished in its original, eighteenth century style, and titled The

Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the 18th century –with displays aiming to illustrate the British understanding of the world at this time. Natural and artificial

curiosities from ‘The New World’ formed an important part of the overall narrative, and a dedicated section of the gallery was titled ‘Trade and Discovery’. Here objects

collected on Cook voyages are still on display, alongside other early material from the

Pacific. In recreating the style of an eighteenth century gentleman’s library, with

books alongside exotic objects, interpretation panels and labels have been kept to a minimum. New systems of classification are referenced by the grouping of objects of the same type. A set of Marquesan tapuvae, stilt steps, for example are installed in one of the wall cases - a label notes where the objects are from, but no contextual information is provided (unlike the table cases, which have explanatory labels). While this method ensures the authenticity of the display style, it obviously does not

encourage any deeper understanding of the originating cultures represented – rather it illustrates a chapter in European academic thought about those originating cultures, and so is valuable as a tool with which to better understand the encounters between Europeans and, Pacific islanders, for example, and the subsequent trajectory of the history of empire. The gallery is best appreciated in conjunction with galleries such as that titled Living and Dying, which also leads off the Great Court of the Museum. This

gallery provides up to date information on a range of the world’s cultures, specifically

examining the ways in which diverse cultures meet the common challenges of human existence. Crucially it displays a significant amount of recently-made objects, and draws on anthropological fieldwork to provide context via text and images.

In 2006 a major historic exhibition of Polynesian objects was prepared by Professor Steven Hooper, at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of Norwich. It

included 270 loaned objects, and roughly half of these were from the British Museum’s

Pacific collections. The exhibition therefore constituted the largest showing of

85 had been held at the British Museum in 199862, drawing solely on the Museum’s

collection of over 2500 taonga Māori. The Norwich exhibition was titled Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860. This time period spanned the major British voyages of discovery, as well as the first missionary forays into the Pacific. Therefore post-contact material is included, and the question of ‘authenticity’

surrounding such material is clearly addressed in the opening chapter of the catalogue

(Hooper, 2006). The exhibition’s arrangement emphasised Polynesian cosmology and

concepts such as mana and tapu. For example, human figures representing gods and

ancestors were displayed in a section titled ‘Marae’, with explanations of this

institution in the respective island groups. As the title suggests, emphasis was placed on the encounters which led to the objects leaving the islands, with an emphasis on how these exchanges fitted in to local customary practices, or to specific historic processes (for example, conversion and the relinquishing of ancestral deity figures).

The objects were redefined as ‘actors’ in the exchange relationships, having agency in the same manner as human beings, in accordance with the theories of Alfred Gell (1998, cited in Hooper, 2006). These theories accord with Polynesian ideology, wherein a god figure is rather than represents a god (Hooper, 2006, p.28).

The exhibition included seven Marquesan objects from the Museum’s collection.

These included the canoe prow (Oc,LMS.194), bowl (Oc,LMS.195) and fan

(Oc,LMS.199) which had been collected by members of the London Missionary Society; the staff (Oc1944,02.696) and ‘u’u club (Oc1920,0317.1), which do not have a clear collection history; and the pa’e kaha (Oc1934,-.3) collected by Nordmann. With the exception of a drum and a trumpet, all of the objects represented in the Marquesan section were personal ornaments or weapons, reflecting the material typically collected in the designated period. Variety was nevertheless emphasised over

collection history – the range of object types included enabled a fuller appreciation of Marquesan aesthetics to be gained. While the exhibition did not make strong

connections between the early encounters and the state of present day societies in Polynesia, it aimed to convey the manner in which Polynesians themselves perceived

62 _{This was in part held to celebrate the return of the ethnographic collections to the main Museum site} at Bloomsbury.

86 the objects which were on display, and as such it represented a highly significant step forward in the museum treatment of Pacific material culture. Importantly, the

exhibition travelled to the new Musée du Quai Branly in Paris in 2008 for another three month showing. The catalogue was also produced in French, so making the exhibition accessible in this format at least to those in French Polynesia.

Closely following Pacific Encounters in late 2006 was another historically focussed temporary Polynesian exhibition, this time at the British Museum. Eastern Polynesian deities and representations of spiritual power were a major focus of this exhibition, which was titled Power and Taboo: Sacred Objects from the Eastern Pacific (see Figure 45). Hence, objects which were made prior to significant missionary influence (and deity figures collected by missionaries, as above) were centre stage. Sections of the exhibition were dedicated to particular island groups – including the Marquesas, which consisted of fifteen objects of personal adornment, all made in the late eighteenth century, or the first half of the nineteenth century. A major difference between Pacific Encounters and this smaller scale exhibition (of around 80 objects) was that the

interpretation often focussed on particular indigenous actors in early encounters. In the Marquesan section, visitors were introduced to a series of key individuals via

historic portraits, including the warrior Mufau, a member of chief Keatonui’s family.

People were thus able to see how various ornaments, such as human hair anklets, were worn, and what their overall effect was in combination with an array of

ornaments and tattooing. In connecting the objects with real people in this manner, Marquesans themselves are finally brought into view. By presenting specific

Marquesan identities, the display also avoided a homogenised view of, for example,

‘the Marquesan warrior’ (see Figures 46 & 47).

Another major difference between Pacific Encounters and Power and Taboo was that the latter aimed to visually represent the contemporary Pacific within the main

exhibition space (as opposed to education programmes only). The two final sections of the Power and Taboo exhibition addressed the changes brought about by Christianity, the appreciation of Polynesian art by Western artists, in particular Henry Moore, and used several contemporary artworks to demonstrate that Polynesian art continues in a range of media in the present (see Figure 48). These included a tivaevae appliqué quilt

87 from the Cook Islands acquired in 2003, a drawing by New Zealand Māori artist John Bevan Ford, and a figure sculpture by carver Lyonel Grant. The latter two were both produced and acquired in the 1990s. These inclusions were highly important, in order to avoid giving the impression that the best of Polynesian art was produced in the past. For London museum audiences, who are predominantly European and North

American, the Pacific is not a familiar region, and so the inclusion of recent material is a means by which visitors can be made aware that the region continues to be

populated and that a diverse range of ever-changing cultures are present. While it was not necessarily possible to include more recent works in the space available – there were no recent Marquesan acquisitions available for inclusion, and so despite this opportunity, the present-day Marquesas could not be visually represented. This situation demonstrates the interdependence of collecting and exhibiting. Where the reality of the situation is that a particular culture is not producing material and/or it is not available for acquisition by collectors or museums, then collecting endeavours should of course be directed towards other media or locations. However in the case of the Marquesas, a wide range of material has been produced by skilled artists in the past several decades. The next chapter explores these developments, and considers

what the Museum has ‘missed out’ on, through a lack of collecting in the Eastern

Pacific region.

Conclusion

In tracing the exhibition history of the Marquesan collection at the British Museum, it has become very clear that the emphasis has remained on the presentation of the earliest collected material, particularly from the voyages of Captain Cook. The twenty-

first century has seen another major exhibition focussed on the British explorer, ‘James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific’, which travelled to three European venues between 2009 and 2010 (and which included the two ‘Cook collection’ Marquesan

objects from the British Museum, and many other objects besides). Twenty-first century exhibitions within Britain which have included Marquesan material have also

had a historical focus, and have sought to emphasise indigenous agency in the ‘first

88 derived. While this reorientation towards Polynesians and Polynesian concepts via the media of exhibition has been extremely important, a continued focus on material from the early contact period must be balanced with equal emphasis on the contemporary Pacific. As outlined in the previous chapter, significant effort has been made and continues to be made to collect and exhibit recent material from the Pacific for the British Museum. Collections from New Zealand and Australia are regularly added to and recent permanent and temporary exhibitions have combined both historic and contemporary material, some items being commissioned especially for this purpose. The Marquesan collection has, however, not experienced the same reconfiguration as

an ‘active’ collection, and is therefore in danger of appearing to lack contemporary

relevance. The next chapter will outline how the collection may be re-evaluated in order to utilize its potential in new ways, and how it may be reinvigorated with a realistic strategy for contemporary collecting.

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Chapter Five