SAMPARI 2016 ART EXHIBITION AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS
ACU Art Gallery, 26 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
OPENS Friday 2 December 2016 : 6pm
CLOSES Sunday 11 December 2016 : 5pm
GALLERY HOURS
Monday-Wednesday 11-6pm
Thursday-Friday 11-8pm
Saturday-Sunday 10-4pm
Sampari, the name of the morning star in the Biak Island language, is a three-part exhibition and series of public events that celebrate West Papuan cultures and explore the nation’s environment, ecology, politics and history. Alongside the main art exhibition is a display of 29 cartoons published in the mainstream media in 2006, the year of high political drama after forty-three West Papuans landed in Australia seeking asylum. Then there are 17 prints, a Wall of Melanesian Art, that artists have emailed from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Kanaky, Vanuatu and Fiji. Within these walls of artistic expression there are public events every night, designed to increase awareness of the West Papuan peoples wish for their right of self-determination to be acknowledged and respected.
Dr John Ballard, Associate Vice-Chancellor (Melbourne) of the Australia Catholic University has agreed to open this festival of colour and hope, the second organised by the Federal Republic of West Papua office in the ACU Art Gallery. The popular lecturer anticipates that the spectacular artworks and events in his university’s spacious urban gallery will boost the psychological health of West Papuans who have endured a debilitating racist occupation for more than half-a-century.
The Art Exhibition
Jaïr Pattipeilohy’s arresting photograph Cultural transmission (below) is one of thirty-six works exhibited by artists from The Netherlands, America, Australia, Maluku, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, West Papua. The works include photography, oil on Belgian linen, oil and acrylic on canvas, archival marker on paper, ink, lino cut, etch, collage, terra cotta base relief, raw natural objects, macrame, digital art, and one computer vector illustration on wood.
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION Frank Berhitu and Marlehu Berhitu, Grandfather with his grandson playing tiha, a Moluccan drum [Photo, J.L.S. PATTIPEILOHY, Tiel, The Netherlands]
The Cartoon Exhibition
PAUL ZANETTI, 43 Asylum seekers land, 18 January 2006
Sampari 2016 includes an exhibition of twenty-eight historical cartoons published after the arrival of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers in 2006. The asylum seekers had beached their double-outrigger canoe at Mapoon on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula on 17 January 2006 with a banner stretched across their prahru Save West Papua People from Genocide. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone believed their claims and issued them protection visas, sparking outrage in Indonesia and a bluster of appeasing strategies and contradictory policies in Australia. President Yudhoyono withdrew his ambassador. Prime Minister Howard tried to excise Australia from ‘designated unauthorised arrivals’ (refugees). The prickly neighbours took ten months to develop a truce: a formal agreement that outlawed the West Papuans’ Morning Star flag in both countries! By the time the Lombok Treaty was signed, ten months after the arrival of the asylum seekers, twenty-nine of Australia’s most celebrated cartoonists had illustrated the capacity of Indonesian-occupied-West Papua to disrupt and distress relations between Australian and Indonesian politicians. One cartoon, Bill Leak’s, had President Yudhoyono in the guise of a dog mounting a West Papuan. Indonesia’s Fonda Lapod responded with a drawing of Prime Minister Howard and Foreign Minister Downer as copulating dingoes.
Art Exhibition Catalogue, sampari-2016-catalogue
Cartoon Exhibition, Notes and Catalogue, cartoon-catalogue
Jon Spooner The things you see by a green light The Age, 9 November 2006
The Public Programs
A series of events in the gallery during the exhibition for poets, songsters, musicians, writers, activists and intellectuals to discuss and debate issues associated with West Papua’s self-determination and independence.
ForthSpeak at SAMPARI
‘Saluting Melanesia’ Culture Day
Debate: Should West Papua be Independent?
Film: Land of the Morning Star by Mark Worth
Pacific views on climate change and environmental destruction
West Papua Open Day
1. ForthSpeak at Sampari, SATURDAY 3 DECEMBER 2016 : 2-4pm
Melbourne is a city of poets and poetry. We even have a ‘Melbourne Poets Union‘. A host of these precious scribes is assembling in the ACU Art Gallery on 3 December to twist their prodigious talent around West Papua’s liberation. Kylie Supski will be there, with her poetic response to Jacob Rumbiak’s Letter to West Papua’s Heroes and Heroines (the ‘twins’ were baptised at the Dan O’Connell Hotel on 9 January 2016). So will Tim Hoffmann from the WP Rent Collective, Laura Brinson, ReVerse Butcher, Andy Jackson, Chalise van Wungaart, Mary Chydiriotis. Also Brendan Bosnack who must have written “for whom did you chisel that line in the sea, one side for the drowning, one side for the free” with our Indonesian-occupied territory in mind.
2. Saluting Melanesia, A Culture Day, SUNDAY 4 DECEMBER 2016: 1pm
Saluting Melanesia celebrates the courageous decision in 2015 by Solomon Islanders, ni-Vanuatu, and the Kanak of New Caledonia to champion West Papua’s entry into the Melanesian Spearhead Group and Pacific Islands Forum. The islanders have continued carrying their kin’s political burden in 2016 within a Pacific Coalition for West Papua. It was Dr Thomas Wainggai’s revolutionary vision of his homeland as ‘the western border of Melanesia, stolen by Indonesia in 1962′ that revitalised West Papuans historic sense of self and orientated the peoples struggle towards its kin and cultural heartland in Melanesia-Pacific.
Dapur Sampari (West Papua kitchen) is cooking and sharing food with Melanesian kin in the ACU Art Gallery on 4 December. The Melanesian seed-to-plate custom has its own historical story, beginning 7000—9000 years ago when Papuans domesticated the wild ancestors of sugarcane, hibiscus spinach, highland pitpit, pandanus, taro, banana, and numerous other species. At this time, at the end of the last Ice Age, they also perfected a drainage method that enabled them to control water and regulate soil moisture. With the arrival of the Austronesian speakers 3,500 years ago, pig husbandry techniques were developed, so pork is on the menu!
3. Debate: Should West Papua be Independent? THURSDAY, 8 DECEMBER: 6 – 8PM
Footscray trio Lunar Flares opens this event with a sonic exposition of the key theme (the long-standing sovereignty dispute over West Papua) before it is debated by the leading intellectuals of our millennial generation. In 1962, the United Nations over-rode West Papuans right of self-determination, leaving 700,000 Melanesians misplaced inside an unstable Indonesian state. American anthropologist Danilyn Rutherford believes “Outsiders have tended to view the West Papuans as far too primitive to act as the mature, rights-bearing subjects of popular sovereignty that liberal thinkers place at the heart of the modern nation form” (Why Papua wants freedom: the third person in contemporary nationalism Public Culture Vol. 20, No. 2, 2008).
Card design Jack Byrne, Australian National University, Canberra; Debate Moderator Dr Jonathan Benney—President, Debating Association of Victoria
Expert Panel Bishop Hilton Deakin (Patron, Australia West Papua Association-Melbourne); Lance Collins (Head of INTERFET Military Intelligence, East Timor 1999-2000); Jacob Rumbiak (Minister for Foreign Affairs, Immigration & Trade, Federal Republic of West Papua); Isaac Morin (Doctoral Dissertation, West Papua: Identity and Language, La Trobe University)
4. Documentary-film, Land of the Morning Star, FRIDAY 9 DECEMBER 2016 : 7pm
Land of the Morning Star, written and directed by Mark Worth, is an important and comprehensive historical document about West Papua. This screening is a memorial tribute to Mark, who died mysteriously in a hotel room in Sentani (West Papua) forty-eight hours after the ABC announced the premiere screening of his masterwork. Guest speaker, Greg Barber MLC, Leader of the Victorian Greens, visited him in the hotel a few days before he died.
Mark Worth in Jayapura
Mark was born on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea when it was an Australian naval base, and as a young boy witnessed the arrival of refugees from West Papua after the UN’s fraudulent Act of Free Choice in 1969. After studying at the Swinburne Film School in Melbourne, he pioneered the one-man style of guerilla filmmaking that by the time of his death in 2004 was commonly used by ABC and SBS current affairs programs.
“Mark managed to combine the sensitivity of a Beat poet, the angry energy of punk and an academic’s drive for historical accuracy. He was the best storyteller I have ever known, in a business where stories are real currency. In that regard he died a wealthy man. Wanpla Big Man tru.” (BEN BOHANE Australian photojournalist, author, and TV producer)
“Mark was more Papuan than even he realised and he landed, like a Martian, into the greyness of Melbourne, bursting with stories of other worlds. There was no art, no music, no political crisis that didn’t have a brilliant parallel in tribal Melanesia. A generation of artists, journalists and filmmakers were drawn into the region through Mark. He was a steam train and a lot of people wanted to get on board. I certainly did. He changed my life and I will miss him forever”. [MARK DAVIS Journalist and SBS Dateline presenter who studied with Mark Worth at Swinburne Film School].
5. Pacific views: Climate change, Environmental destruction, SAT 10 DEC 2016 : 2pm
Jacynta Fuamatu is the Melbourne representative for 350 Pacific, a climate change action group with strong regional partners that advocates for Pacific islanders. Wensi is concerned with forest destruction in West Papua and its global consequences. The forum also features a parade featuring Off2War wearable fashion made from recycled materials.
6. West Papua Rent Collective Christmas Party, SUNDAY 11 DECEMBER 2016 : 1-3pm
The annual West Papua Rent Collective Christmas Party is one of three Open Days where members meet, eat, learn, and catch up on West Papua’s political progress towards self-determination and independence. After an exquisite lunch prepared by Dapur Sampari (Papua Kitchen), Reverend Dr J.T. Hollis (Father Turi) from Christchurch Anglican Church in St Kilda leads a special ceremony for West Papua’s martyrs and political prisoners.
The West Papua Rent Collective is a unique galaxy of Australians investing in West Papua’s future as an independent Melanesian state. Their $30/month ($360/annum) deposits pay the rent on the West Papuans’ inspiring five-star-energy office on the Yarra River at 838 Collins St in Docklands (Victoria) which opened in June 2014. The office, co-ordinated by Jacob Rumbiak, Babuan Mirino, and Natalie Adadikam, works within the guidelines of Self-determination, Sustainability, and Good Governance.
One-page summary of Sampari Art Exhibition and Public Events
sampari-art-exhibition-for-west-papua-1-page-summary
Sampari Sponsors West Papua’s escalating profile in 2016, as distinct from ten years ago, has meant a healthy number of firms became interested in sponsoring the Sampari Exhibition. Besides the Australian Catholic University, this includes Bendigo Bank, Moon Dog Craft Brewery, Artway Frames, Total Print Solutions, Take Off Tours travel agency, Image United Photograph. The Federal Republic of West Papua sincerely thanks these captains of industry for their support.
Image: Andrew Dyson Avoiding the real West Papua The Age, 15 May 2006
