Baskets and photography capture Melanesia’s vibe
When New Zealanders think of the Pacific Islands, Polynesia usually springs to mind long before Melanesia.
But the islands stretching from Timor to Fiji are just as much in our backyard, and Pataka is celebrating them with two exhibitions.
Haunting photographs from two decades of civil violence across Melanesia form photojournalist Ben Bohane’s The Black Islands.
But the gallery’s centrepiece is Baskets of Melanesia, a showcase of hundreds of woven bags and containers from Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Timor Leste, West Papua, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Many of the baskets were lent to Pataka by Paremata historian Rhys Richards, New Zealand’s high commissioner to the Solomons from 1996 until 1999.
He and wife Margaret collected dozens of baskets during their stint, as art objects, practical vessels and as a way to meet the local women who weave and sell them.
‘‘It’s also a way to talk to people, and find out how they make them and why they make them,’’ Mr Richards says. ‘‘They’re beautiful, they’re handsome. It’s not an expensive hobby, a few of them got used as handbags.’’
The intricately woven bags with striking designs wowed New Zealand weavers at the exhibition’s launch, Mr Richards says. All are made of plant material, some quite ingeniously. One type of bag is soaked to swell the fibres and can then be used to carry water.
Melanesia is poor but beautiful, says Mr Richards, who considers it his second home. The people are friendly and direct, and the islands’ diversity is stunning, he says. A quarter of the world’s languages are spoken there.
‘‘Our heart is in the Solomon Islands,’’ he says.
Baskets of Melanesia