Pacific Ocean
James Cook (1728-1779) was the first English sailor to pass close to New Caledonia during his second Pacific expedition. He was to rename the Big Land in Caledonia, evoking the old Latin name for Scotland.[...]
Read MoreThe temporary exhibition “Kanak. L’Art est une Parole” at Musée du Quai Branly is shaped as a typical Kanak’s Big House : at the entrace there are wooden statues evoking ancestor’s presence among inhabitants, while the background the flute sound means the world interpretation before word. [...]
Read MoreAsmat Ceremonial Shield with anthropomorphic figure
This Asmat shield is preciously carved with a complex ancestral symbology.
It is made by dark and hard wood and it has tiny dimensions (cm.20x82h x 1,5 d) because it was located in one of the four corner of the familiy’s fireplace, the so-called “yeu”, in the heart of the village to protect from evil spirits. [...]
Read MoreA zoolgist turns in antropologist
A field journal full of cultural adventures and discovers
Read MoreSolomon Islands' Nguzu in carved stone
This unique example of Nguzu idle comes from the remote Island of Ranongga (Solomon Islands), which is known for its river stone used for fine sculptures. [...]
Read MoreThis picture was shooted at @Canadian Centre Cultuerl in @Paris during Stan Douglas’ photographic exhibition called “Abandonment and Spledour”
It’s 1996 in an Inuit Church in Yuqout, this photo is part of Nootka Sound series. The exposition presents other five series of ruins’ images, due to their brutal state of place. Their own history is evoked by their images, which have as common characteristics the suspension, it seems time stopped after shooting.
Stan Douglas puts together past and present in one unique time which it is never began nor ended. He collects everything humans left behind, in this case the colonial influence, which transformed indigenous between modern and progressist standard. The abandoned places in the pictures evoke lost population and culture, gave in to the most powerful.
[....] In Anhtropology the so-called “research on the field” was firstly made by Franz Boas (1858-1942). He studied the Kwakiutl Eskimo’s Potlach, they leave along the Pacific Coast in the northern British Columbia, Canada. The Potlach is a ceremonial to achieve a status change, where the social prestige is acquired by giving: among Kwakiutl the social dimension subordinates the economic one.[...]
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