Raimundo working at the Mudbrick Vineyard in Waiheke Island, New Zealand

I first noticed RAIMUNDO MACKENNA sitting on the floor of the National Gallery in Federation Square.  He was sketching in his notepad. He was focussed, his scribbling was deliberate; maybe professional I thought.  So I asked him if he would enter the 2017 Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua.  He had flown in from Chile the day before, didn’t know where West Papua was, but wanted to.  Like many, he said he’d call; unlike most, he did.

Raimundo graduated from Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago with a graphic arts degree.  He worked in the industry for a few years, but was then drawn to the precarious life of free-range artist. He doesn’t know why.  None of his family are artists (but do have artistic sensibilities), and none of his Spanish or Irish ancestors left any records of artistic endeavour.

The journeyman from Chile constructs his art with cardboard.  When he visited the West Papua’s five-star-energy office in Docklands he asked to see the rubbish room, and I learned much about the ubiquitous product that I usually spend hours flattening to fit in the recycling bin.  Raimundo doesn’t recycle, he upcycles, which means transforming by-products and waste materials into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value (see Upcycling becomes a treasure trove for Green Business Ideas, at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219310).

For Sampari, Raimundo has entered three portraits of animals from West Papua, which he describes as “manifestations of nature chosen for their colour, beauty or expression”.  Dendrolagus is of a tree-kangaroo; Kokomo is a Papuan hornbill; Varanus is a monitor lizard.

Raimundo Mackenna, DENDROLAGUS (tree-kangaroo) from the series ‘Naive Animals from West Papua, a manifestation of nature chosen for their colour, beauty or expression’

Roger Martin Tree-kangaroos of Australia and New Guinea Australian Natural History Series, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, 2005:p2

Dendrolagus (tree-kangaroo) derives from two Greek words, dendro meaning ‘tree’ and lagus meaning ‘hare’.  The shy marsupials were first observed by western scientists in West Papua in 1826, when the Netherlands’ Natural History Commission visited Lobo on the north-west coast.  The villagers called them ‘wangoerie’ and told the Dutchmen they lived in trees.  In Australia half a century later (in 1872) an Aboriginal guide, Jerry, pointed out tree-kangaroos to the leader of a mining survey along the Bloomfield River in North Queensland.  Jerry’s people, from further south around Cardwell, had always called them ‘boongary’.  Expedition leader, William Hann, a pioneer pastoralist immortalised in a monument in the outback town of Charters Towers, wrote in his diary “the idea that any kangaroo known to us could climb a tree would be ridiculous!” (Roger Martin, 2005).

There are twelve known species of tree-kangoo in the world, two in the rainforests of North Queensland, and the others in West Papua and Papua New Guinea.  The ‘wangoerie’ of West Papua,’Vogelkopt Tree-kangaroo’ in English, is called Dendrolagus ursinus by scientists.  The ‘wakera’, also seen in Lobo in 1826, is the ‘Grizzled Tree-kangaroo’ in English, and listed by scientists as Dendrolagus inustus.  In the 1990’s, Australian biologist and conservationist Tim Flannery observed and named four others, including the black-and-white Dendrolagus mbaiso in the high altitude mossy forests of the Sudirman Range in West Papua.  (Mbaiso means ‘forbidden animal’ in the local Moni language).  Tree-kangaroos never learned to fear West Papuans–in 1974 ecologist Jared Diamond watched them calmly observing him in the Foja Mountains. However, all species are now threatened by habitat loss.

Raimundo Mackenna, KOKOMO (2017) from ‘Naive Animals from West Papua, a manifestation of nature chosen for their colour, beauty or expression’

The Papuan Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus, Blyth’s Hornbill) is a true ‘Melanesian’ bird, with habitat ranging from the Maluku ‘spice’ Islands shadowing the west coast of West Papua, through New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, out to the Solomon Islands of East Melanesia. It is a uniquely shaped avian with an inquisitive character and a range of far-reaching, guttural grunting and laughing calls.  A bony growth (casque) exacerbates the size and shape of its very large, bill, and its heavy black body sports a short, white tail.  Adults have reddish-brown eyes fringed with long delicate eyelashes (that are actually modified feathers) encircled by a patch of naked (featherless) bluish-white skin.  In flight the sound of its wings has been compared to the sound of steam escaping from a steam locomotive.

Like numerous birds and fish, and even some humans, the Papuan Hornbill is a geophagine (eats soil).  Scientists debate the function of this habit, Jared Diamond in his 1999 study of New Guinea birds finding it ‘bound poisonous and/or bitter-tasting secondary compounds in ingested fruits and seeds’:

To test hypotheses … we carried out chemical and physical analyses of soil samples from the site. The ingested soil was much too fine-grained to be useful as grit; it contained only modest levels of all 14 minerals analysed; it lacked buffering capacity; and there was no evidence that it protected against diarrhoea (‘Geophagy in New Guinea birds’ J Diamond, D Bishop, J Gilardi, IBIS International Journal of Avian Science, Volume 141, April 1999: pp181–193).

Erik Kowalczyk Coraciiformes TAG-Aceros, Rhyticeros, Berenicornis Hornbills (www.coraciiformestag.com/Hornbill/aceros.htm#top).

Jacob Rumbiak from West Papua says you can tell the age of a hornbill by the number of bone growths on the upper and lower beaks (suggesting Raimundo’s cardboard bird is two years old).  Jacob, who was born in Yabon village in the Birdshead, claims his younger brother trained his hornbill pet to protect the family’s chickens from preying eagles.  Film buffs might recall that it was a (red-billed) hornbill called Zazu, who in the animated film The Lion King (1994) saves King Musafa’s girlfriend from a committee of vultures.

Raimundo Mackenna, VARANUS (2017) from ‘Naive Animals from West Papua, a manifestation of nature chosen for their colour, beauty or expression’

Papua Monitor Lizard (also called Varanus salvadorii, Salvadori’s monitor, Crocodile monitor, Artellia)

Varanus derives from the Arabic waral (ورل), meaning ‘lizard’; Salvadori from the Italian zoologist and taxonomist Count Adelardo Tommaso Salvadori Paleotti whose four-volume study of the birds of Papua and the Moluccas (‘Ornithologia delle Papuasia e della Molucche’) was published in 1880.

(Note to freedom fighters: Salvadori was also a medical officer in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1860 battle against the Bourbons for Sicily, which concluded with a plebiscite and the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861).

Tommaso Salvadori (1880) ‘Ornitologia delle Papuasia e delle Molucche’ (Birds of Papuasia and Moluccas)

Papuan Monitor (Varanus Salvadorii). Photo from Project Noah, a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere (http://www.projectnoah.org/).

The Papua Monitor is a tree-climbing lizard endemic to New Guinea and is the territory’s top predator.  It inhabits the canopies of lowland rainforests and coastal mangrove swamps from sea level to 2000 ft (600 m).

Indigenous folklore has the Papuan Monitor as an evil spirit that climbs trees, walks upright, breathes fire, and kills men.  It has long straight teeth, long forked tongue, blunt bulbous snout, and a bite which like the Komodo Dragon’s is capable of causing a fatal infection.  Its long tail is 2/3 of its total length and is used like a whip to break the leg bones of Papuan hunting dogs, or rolled up to warn of marauding crocodiles.

In a 2007 study of three Varanus species by West Papuans at Papua State University in Manokwari, the three villages surveyed in the Arfak Mountain Nature Reserve did not use monitor skin on their drums (tifa) because they did not own the rights to the skin tanning process.  The meat of Varanus indicus and Varanus salvadorii was a source of animal protein (but not Varanus prasinus), but all avoided hunting salvadorii because of its aggressive attitude and behaviour to both man and dog (Pattiselanno F, Rahayu E, Wanggai J Varanus Species at the Arfak Mountain Nature Reserve, at http://papuaweb.org/dlib/jr/pattiselanno/2007a.pdf).

Raimondo’s portraits of West Papua fauna can be seen and bought at

Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua, 8-17 December 2017

ACU Art Gallery
26 Brunswick St
Fitzroy, Melbourne

[click for] Events in the Gallery during Sampari Art Exhibition

Updates about Sampari Art and Events on FACEBOOK at Sampari Exhibition
More of Raimundo Mackenna’s art at www.naiveanimals.tumblr.com

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MONICA GUNAWAN (Papua New Guinea) DREAM HUNTER. “A brave and strong Melanesian woman, not afraid to lift a bow-and-arrow to hunt, standing up against her tribes traditions that do not allow women to hunt and fight.”

The 2016 Sampari Art Exhibition and sale for West Papua in the Australian Catholic University’s Art Gallery in Fitzroy in December 2016, hosted by the Federal Republic of West Papua’s office in Docklands, included a special Wall of Melanesian prints. The vibrant works sent by artists from Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea projected kaleidoscopic views of Melanesian West Papua: as carriage of identifying tribal cultures, as agents of social change, as protector of complex ecologies, as children battered by war, as contested political identity at the centre of regional affairs.

All the prints were bought during the exhibition but are reproduced below, interspersed with excerpts from an essay by Sydney arts critic Ella Mudie:

The Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua is an expression of the solidarity many Australians feel for the plight of our West Papuan neighbours. Further afield, an “agreement of feeling or action” that West Papua should be accorded the human right of self-determination unifies individuals across the Pacific.  While this sense of regional solidarity is shared by every artist contributing work to the exhibition, it is especially prevalent in the Melanesian wall of art established to celebrate the unique political support of artists and cultural producers from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Solomon Islands, for their Melanesian kin …

Whether artists can, or should wade into the arena of politics is a vexed question in the world of contemporary art.  Within the framework of neoliberal capitalism, debate frequently involves heated discussion over the recuperation of critique and protest.  In this environment of passionate disagreement over the role of the artist, the organisation of cultural events like Sampari along lines of solidarity, bringing together a diversity of artistic works in the name of a single cause – freedom for West Papua – provides an important outlet for expressing desire for change at a community level.

Works like Monica Gunawan’s vivid painting of a Melanesian woman rebuking tribal traditions by raising a hunting bow and arrow speak to the power of solidarity along gender lines. This is especially poignant in ‘Hope’ the portrait of a Papuan woman in Indigenous headdress by a West Papuan photographer. Solidarity with and between women acts as a subtle mode of resistance as it manifests not only in art but in everyday life, the realm wherein the personal becomes political and grassroots change often begins [Ella Mudie]

ANONYMOUS (West Papua) HOPE. “The Melanesian family has finally heard the West Papuan women’s cry, and they now have hope. Family is a gift from heaven, bound by the power of love. It is the strongest team, members have each others back. Its bonds can never be broken, even when obstacles try to tear it apart.”

The Melanesian states were colonies when the United Nations gifted West Papua to Indonesia in 1962, and may have been unaware of the theft of 416,000 sq kms of Melanesian land and the Indonesian border slip from Meridan 139E to Meridian 141E. A raft of name changes in West Papua helped mask the crime. Netherlands New Guinea became Irian Barat (then Irian Jaya), Hollandia became Jayapura (victorious city), Mount Carstenz overlooking what would be the (US) Freeport gold-and-copper mine became Puncak Jaya (victorious mountain), Dirk Hartog Island became Pulau Yos Sudarso after an Indonesian Navy commander. Little news escaped from the territory now categorised an Operational War Zone. Journalists and academics were denied visas. Subversion laws were exacted by a judiciary ruled by the military (which four years later slaughtered three million of its own citizens in Java and Bali). Only the ni-Vanuatu, urged on by their first prime minister Walter Lini, remembered the orphaned Papuans.

WOVEN BAGS, Tongoa-Shepherds Women’s Association in Vanuatu.

Craft work is often characterised as apolitical in the discourse of western art. However, the exchange of art and craft objects in Melanesia, like the woven bags exhibited by the Tongoa-Shepherds Women’s Association in Vanuatu, has long been implicated in complex political and social relations. For writers like the late Epeli Hau‘ofa, recognising such connections provides a politically transformative corrective to the notion that Pacific Island cultures are separated and isolated by the sea … when they are, in fact, an oceanic community based on voyaging.

West Papua’s assertion as a Melanesian state on 14 December 1988 was the initiative of Dr Thomas Wainggai, a senior public servant in Indonesia’s provincial administration with a law degree from Japan’s Okayama University and a PhD in Public Administration from Florida State University. Wainggai’s studies outside his homeland convinced him that West Papuans needed to resist the Indonesian occupation through dialogue-based negotiation generated by ‘justice, peace and love’ and to develop a national political structure based on their cultures, geographies and histories.  He raised a flag in the name of West Melanesia on 14 December 1988 and was immediately arrested and incarcerated. Twelve months later eighty-eight academics from Cenderawasih University who had been developing and implementing the non-violent paradigm were also arrested and incarcerated. However the seeds of a resistance and nation-making endeavour that looked to the east more than the west had already been cast and taken root.

ALLAN MOGEREMA (Papua New Guinea) FREE PARADISE. “The beautiful bird-of-paradise is only found in West Papua and Papua New Guinea. For so long the Indonesians have held our bird-of-paradise in a cage built by humans.”

Melanesians feel something that anthropologists call ’embodied kinship’ when they hear about West Papua. Kinship recognition enacts long-established, reassuring, interconnecting patterns that are crucial to a human being’s sense of identity and security …. recalling a common history of origin and journeying across time and space, which in correlation with genetics, produces striking and inherently meaningful similarities.  The Netherlands colonial administration was sensitive to this and provided for Papuan pastors to participate in Protestant church conferences in the Pacific and students to study at the Fiji campus of the University of South Pacific.  After the establishment of the South Pacific Commission in 1947 (where the independence of the colonies was assumed even if discussion was curtailed to economic and social welfare) it sent Markus Kaisepo, a prominent bureaucrat from Biak-Numfoor, to the first meeting of the Commission’s indigenous leaders—an historic gathering in 1951 described by the Governor of Fiji (Sir Brian Freeston) as a Parliament of the South Pacific Peoples.  The Unitary Republic of Indonesia severed these rich veins of continuity and solidarity on 1 May 1963.

West Papuans began lobbying the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) in 2000 (Note 1). Papuans nation-making processes, as much as Indonesia’s bribes and blocking tactics, retarded their project to join the four-member inter-government group. However, during an intense week-long Reconciliation and Unity Summit for West Papuan Leaders in Vanuatu in 2014, a United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) was elected from, and rendered accountable to, West Papua’s three key independence identities: Federal Republic of West Papua (Secretary-General Octo Mote and Executive Officer Jacob Rumbiak); West Papua National Parliament (Spokesman Benny Wenda); West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (Leonie Tanggahma, Rex Rumakiek). The historic summit was generated by church and women’s organisations across Melanesia; was sparked by the 2013 World Council of Churches Assembly in South Korea; was supported by West Papua’s Gereja Kristen Injili (GKI) Church; was sponsored by the Vanuatu Government and Pacific Conference of Churches; and was mediated by the Vanuatu Christian Council and Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs. The following year, the MSG accepted the West Papuan movement as an ‘Observer’, although at the same time promoted Indonesia from ‘observer’ to ‘associate member’.

LAMBERT HO (Fiji) Drowning Sorrows

The term ‘solidarity’, deriving from nineteenth-century French, describes a “unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest.” It is a notion that stirs, binds, and resonates most strongly during moments or events of crisis. The diverse nations and cultures of the Pacific have responded to Indonesia’s brutal occupation of West Papua with sympathy and solidarity as well as complicity.

CAMPION OHASIO (Solomon Islands) Heroes or traitors for West Papua
The Island Sun newspaper, 24 June 2014

Humour and satire is another means through which solidarity is expressed as in Campion Ohasio’s cartoon ‘Heroes or Traitors of West Papua’.  First published in the Solomon Islands newspaper The Island Sun in 2015 on the day the leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group met in Honiara to vote on West Papua’s membership, Ohasio’s drawing depicts a man flailing in the sea.  With the West Papua morning star flag in one hand, he reaches out to the MSG leaders seated in a canoe to raise him from the clutches of the great white shark of Indonesia.  This liberty to express a strong point of view through satirical humour without threat or fear of retribution, no matter how provocative the message, is one of the hallmarks of a free society and a point of solidarity that unites artists across cultures.

KINGSTON UYSSAI (Papua New Guinea) HELA WIGMAN WARRIOR “My work of a Hela Wigman warrior displays PNG’s rich timeless culture.  Just across the border West Papuan cultures are having to fight for survival”

That West Papua’s resistance movement was recognised by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2015 can be attributed to a coalition of political, religious, academic and civic leaders from the Solomon Islands, a tiny archipelago of half-a-million Melanesians (Note 1). Prime Minister (and MSG Chair) Manessah Sogavare, assisted by Peter Forau (Director-General, MSG Secretariat 2011-2015) and Emele Duituturaga (Director, Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organizations), leap-frogged the MSG’s more compromised states (Papua New Guinea and Fiji) with the support of Polynesian and Micronesian leaders from the Pacific Islands Forum (Note 2). As the Pacific Coalition for West Papua based in Hawai’i University and advised by Solomon Island Professor Tarcicius Kabutaulaka, they were a strong voice in the 2016 United Nations General Assembly (Note 3).

PATRICK TONGA (Papua New Guinea) No hope and homeless

Today, Indonesia continues to solicit geopolitical support for its territorial claim to West Papua, asserting that the sovereignty of nations should be respected. The Australian government turns a blind eye to the Indonesian military’s violations of human rights in the name of ‘national interest’ and unwavering solidarity with its regional ally. Despite this, the solidarity with West Papuans that events like the Sampari Art Exhibition convey reveals citizens have a passionate desire for justice that seeks outlet in real and meaningful action.

MERE RASUE (Fiji) FOR MY FREEDOM “A photo of a child, face painted with the West Papuan flag, who is proud of his origin, lest we forget that the young ones also see the torture and the hardship … this child is seeking peace and a better future for his generation … we need to build a better life of freedom”

2016 Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua
Sampari, Art and solidarity, Essay, Exhibition Catalogue

NOTES

1. The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) was formed in July 1986 during a meeting of Heads of Government of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), who agreed to work together in spearheading regional issues including the Kanak’s independence struggle in New Caledonia. On 14 March 1988, PNG Prime Minister Paias Wingti, Vanuatu Prime Minister Walter Lini, and Solomon Islands Foreign Affairs Minister Ezekiel Alebua signed the ‘Principles of Cooperation Among the Independent States in Melanesia’. FLNKS formally joined the MSG in 1989. Fiji joined in 1996. The MSG Secretariat in Port Vila, constructed by People’s Republic of China, opened on 30 May 2008.

2. The Pacific Islands Forum is a political grouping of fourteen Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian independent and self-governing states, as well as Australia and New Zealand (that is, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji; Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru; Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Niue, Samoa). In 2015 the Forum noted West Papua’s application for membership subject to a PIF Fact-finding Mission to West Papua, which Indonesia subsequently rejected.

3. Speakers to the 2016 UNGA were Prime Minister Sogavare (Solomon Islands), Prime Minister Salawi (Vanuatu), Prime Minister Pohiva (Tonga), President Hilda Heine (Federated States of Micronesia), Prime Minister Sopoaga (Tuvalu), President Divavesi Waqa (Nauru), Dr Caleb Otto (UN Representative, Republic of Palau).

Peter Woods 2015 Papuana Nymphaea Gouache on watercolour paper

PETER WOODS won the People’s Choice Award at the 2015 Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua, with his Papuana Nymphaea. The work brings to light the suffering of the West Papuans in the setting of Monet’s famous Nymphaeas series of water lilies. The award was a Gift Voucher ($150) from Fitzroy Stretches in Brunswick.

“This work comes from a current landscape series I have been doing as my response to spending two hours sketching in the gardens of Impressionist Claude Monet in Giverny, France. I have introduced the West Papuan suffering at the hands of the Indonesian state into the setting of Monet’s famous Nymphaes series  of the waterlilies in his famous garden ponds. The images in the pond of young Papuan people recently killed by Indonesian security forces seeks to deliberately disrupt the enjoyment of the garden’s aesthetic. It challenges the viewer to respond to this dissonance and reflect on how we in a free and democratic society can accept violent repression right next door to us. I also reference the ancient mythology  of the beautiful nymphs who were believed to live in ponds – hence the origin of the lily botanical name. In this garden view, however,  it is the beauty of Papuan youth that emerges from the waters, surfacing as ornamental dead witnesses making a mute appeal for justice to lovers, and painters, of pleasure gardens” [Peter Woods].

Van T Rudd Let rage, unity and love take form ACU Art Gallery, 4 December 2015

VAN T RUDD also won a People’s Choice Award with his sculpture Let rage, unity and love take form. The Award was a Gift Voucher of one frame donated by Framed By You in Richmond.

“The fight against the power of capital is global. When somebody resists state forces, they speak the language of a common goal: dignity and equality. Yet corrupt state forces are strong, and their ties with the world’s wealthiest bring immense power. This sculpture displays that fulcrum of opposing powers, and aims to gather and sling the arrows of justice for West Papua [Van T Rudd].

Bronwen Bender 2015, Faces of freedom

BRONWEN BENDER won a People’s Choice Award donated by Great Frames in Northcote with Faces of freedom, her wire-art portrait of four West Papuan (former) political prisoners.

Faces of freedom

1) Jacob Rumbiak, as a student, lecturer, cultural leader, political prisoner, helped inspire the generation of Indonesian students who brought down Suharto in 1998, and the West Papuans who are slowly but inevitably winning their independence. He escaped from Indonesia in 1999 to observe the referendum in East Timor, and from there was flown to Australia where he is widely recognised as a diplomat and a leading scholar on Indonesia and West Papua.

2) Muma Yusefa Alomang and husband Markus Kwalik, whose five children died from tailing sickness, have spent their lives fighting the landlessness, poverty, and disease in communities displaced by the Freeport Mine. Their tribe, the Amungme, has ancestral tenure over Nemangkawi, the site of the mine. Between 1977 and 1994 Muma was incarcerated 18 times, including in a cargo container of human faeces for a month. In 1999 she won the Yap Thiam Hien Human Rights Award, in 2001 the Goldman Environmental Prize, and in 2005 she was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

3) Buchtar Tabuni was born into the Lani tribe of the Central Highlands. After studying engineering in Makassar (South Sulawesi) he returned to Jayapura and cormed the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) for independence. In 2008 he was incarcerated for three years for organising rallies in support of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (in London). In the notorious Abepura Prison he was continually tortured and beaten by the Indonesian military and refused hospital treatment.

4) Babuan Mirino was thirteen in 1962 when the United Nations gave her homeland to Indonesia. While raising her seven children she was midwife to hundreds of women who refused to go to government hospitals where the child and mother mortality rate is the highest in Indonesia. Her husband’s political activism eventually forced her to seek asylum. She founded the West Papua Women’s Office-Docklands.

Other artworks in Sampari 2015 exhibition

Vicki Kinai 2015 Perseverance and Endurance against the Odds Twisted tapa fibre, shells, pig tusk, bird, emu feathers (photo: Tommy Latupeirissa, ACU Art Gallery, 4 December 2015)

VICKI KINAI is from Papua New Guinea. Her Perseverance and Endurance against the Odds is a hand-woven necklace designed in the traditional Melanesian style to honour the women of West Papua. “They weave against the odds even when their tomorrow is bleak. They continue to persevere as mothers, wives, sisters, aunties and grandmothers of their loved ones whose lives have been lost in the fight for freedom.”

Lobar Wainggai, Gilius Kogoa Honai (photo: Tommy Latupeirissa, ACU Art Gallery, 4 December 2015)

LOBAR WAINGGAI AND GILIUS KOGOA are from West Papua. They and 41 other Papuans escaped in 2005 on a double-outrigger canoe, circumnavigated their huge island homeland and crossed Torres Strait to Australia where they were given asylum. The honai they built for Sampari 2015 is in the style of homes in the Papuan highlands. This one ‘worked’ outside the Indonesian Consulate in Queens Road on 1 and 2 December before moving 7 kms across town to the ACU Art Gallery in Fitzroy.

Lobar and Gilius’ Honai ‘working’ opposite Indonesian Consulate in Melbourne on 1 December 2015

Tommy Latupeirissa 2015 Struggling for West Papua in Kanaky, Struggling for West Papua in Melbourne, Struggling for West Papua in Solomon Islands (photo: Dekki Woirei)

TOMMY LATUPEIRISSA has been photographing the indigenous peoples of the Pacific for years, at home, at play, and at their most dramatic in cultural festival and political rallies. He uses his photos to fortify the self-determination and independence ambitions of the Melanesian people of West Papua and their cultural cultural and political kin in Maluku.

Dean Golja Jacob Rumbiak (Sampari 2015, ACU Art Gallery, Fitzroy)

Portrait of Jacob Rumbiak by DEAN GOLJA. “The artist’s intention for this portrait was to capture Jacob’s honesty and the result is this sincere and unpretentious photograph.”