Navigation Chart, Marshall Islands
Navigation Chart, late 19th century, Marshall Islands, wood,
Mask (Buk), Torres Strait, Mabuiag Island
fiber, and shells (American Museum of Natural History)
Mid to late 19th century, turtle shell, wood, cassowary feathers,
Collected by Robert Louis Stevenson
fiber, resin, shell, paint, 21 1/2 inches (54.61 cm) high
Speakers: Jenny Newell, Steven Zucker and Tina Stege
Located in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris.
I chose this video as I
wanted to deepen my
knowledge about extra-
occidental art pieces,
and understand the
meaning behind them.
However, after watching
the video, the feeling I
get is that there are
many contextual
elements that are
unknown to us which
makes it difficult to truly
understand what the
practice meant to the
people.
This video is about a mask from an Island (Mabuiag Island) in
the Torres Strait (a body of water between New Guinea and
Australia). The video first described the mask formally then Drs.
Peri Klemm and Beth Harris discussed the context it was used in
and the origin of the piece.
We thereby learn that the mask is a turtle shell mask, a very
precious material used in the Torres Strait, divided into three parts
The Pacific
(a human face with raffia attached to it, the face and body of a
frigate bird and feathers). In addition to turtle shell, the feathers,
shell and raffia add to the texture and the materiality of the piece.
As for the more detailed information about the piece, the
mask could have been one part of an elaborate costume. It would
have been seen in motion in front of an audience when it was
actually used. So we're seeing it in a very static way which is very
unnatural. With the dancer likely making the gestures of a bird.
However, we need to ask ourselves what the origin of the piece is;
turtle shell was traded in the 1800s by European sailors and during
the Christianisation of the area the practice of mask making was
forbidden and the masks were destroyed, even burnt. That is why it
is unknown if the mask was made by the people themselves, as an
authentic cultural practice or to be sold to tourists and collectors.
Nevertheless, turtle shell masks have a long history and tradition in
the Torres Strait and were prestigious objects kept in houses of
stone.
According to art historians the bird could be seen as a totem
associated to an ancestor or a hero. The mask likely connected the
wearer to supernatural, to something beyond the physical world.
The audacity of Christian art: Putting God in His place: Here,
everywhere, and nowhere
I chose this video as I How do artists handle the challenge of attempting to depict a
figure who lived a human life on earth – at a specific time and in
wanted to know more about
specific places – but who was simultaneously divine, beyond
Christian iconography in
place and time?
addition to what I had
This video is also an attempt to deepen my Speaker: Chloë Reddaway divine light/connection to
interest about the Pacific region and its already learned about the physical seperation God and the Holy Spirit
chaste/set apart, protected
subject as well as a way to
from ordinary physical
the stone wall brings us up
cultures. I wanted to know more about the
penetration
short and materialises our
understanding
objects that have an important cultural value confront theological points
without being qualified as art when they are of view. I also thought it was infinite gaze intersects with
the message of the Angel
originally made even if we could attribute a good way to learn about Angel's message
aesthetic values to them (which would be the ways the invisible world
slightly insensitive in my opinion as it would is shown in paintings.
be looking at the object without trying to
understand its use).
Filippo Lippi, ‘The Annunciation'
This video explored the way Lorenzo di Credi (‘The Virgin and Child’, c.
Maps made in the Marshall Islands are called meddo or
1480–5) and Filippo Lippi (‘The Annunciation’, c. 1450–3), painters from the
rebbelib. They are made of sticks and shells put together (the
quattrocento period, represented divinity by using space and place to point
sticks register the swells, the currents, the landmarks of the
Lorenzo di Credi , ‘The Virgin and Child’
to the limitations of our vision and understanding when pondering over
open sea, the pathways and the cowry shells represent the
mystery by analysing the mysterious location of ‘The Virgin and Child’ and
islands). They serve as as mental maps of the archipelago, a
the spatial metaphors in ‘The Annunciation’. In fact, in Christian faith, God is
memory aid only used on shore and never on the boat as the
omnipresent and beyond. In relation to that, his Son has a particular
chart records the way in which the water is responsive to the
presence as he came down from heaven, lived on earth for a particular time
islands.
and in specific places, died, was resurrected and ascended back to heaven.
The sea is the element that Marshall Islanders live with all
In the ‘The Virgin and Child’, the Child (the Christ), looks very human
the time, it's a very intimate part of who they are and their
and his appearance makes it easy to forget he is not only human. The place
daily lives and is the unifying element. The ocean creates the
Christianity
in which they are set contains the mystery and is seen as a metaphor for the
relationship between the atolls and the islands (Epeli Hauʻofa,
Virgin and the Child and it pushes us away from the fact that we have made
Our sea of islands).
sense of what we see. It should be noted that looking at the background
The size of the shells expresses how isolated those islands are,
more carefully, the pillars look unsettling as they do not seem to be on the
but brought together within this greater matrix of the wood
same level.
(the ocean).
In the same way, in ‘The Annunciation’, Lippi aimed to represent
Every chart is different as it is made by a navigator to
divinity at a time when space looked more and more like ‘real’ space, making
represent the way he sees this ocean with its islands and how
it harder to show that it is sacred (meaning a scared place should stand out
to get between them. The knowledge about the sea is
compared to secular places). In this way, how did he convey a sense of what
transmitted from elders to the younger generations as the
was happening at the moment of Christ’s conception ? The solution was to
ocean can be treacherous.
incorporate elements of the unreal in the painting (an impossible building as
However, that harmonious relationship with the sea is changing
a paradox for painting the Christ) while respecting the invisibility of the
rapidly nowadays because of climate change and nuclear
event using a separation between the Angel and the Virgin Mary. Most
testing in the past.
importantly, the Virgin is inside an enclosed garden, an emphasis to the
One can only imagine what a contemporary map would
physical separation, that is a metaphor for her purity. Additionally, divine
look like now, one that spans not only islands, but over nations.
light is descending from God’s hand at the top of the artwork. Lippi cannot
Tina Stege from the Marshall Islands for a number of years and
show us the mystery of Christ’s conception, but uses a metaphor for it by
she wrote a beautiful piece to talk about climate change, We
using the space of the painting. Then, as we look towards the vanishing
Are Navigating Threatening Seas in which she writes, "will they
point, our gaze is blocked by a stone wall and it returns to the surface. This
know the smell of Māan, the pandanus fiber we use to weave
shows we can only understand this much of the image and that our
everything - clothing mats, baskets, the small flowers we wear
understanding is limited to our human condition.
in our hair? What will the world be like for them?" Alicia Jay 1stY