The other day, a curator from Papua New Guinea was telling me about a particular custom of hospitality she grew up with called ‘hamal’. In certain circumstances, if a visitor expresses a liking for something that you possess, you are then obliged to give it to them. Clearly, this is a custom suited more to [...]
Posts under ‘Signs of Change’
The Baci ceremony, with strings attached
image I was at the Selling Yarns market in the National Museum, chatting with Valerie Kirk, head of textiles at the Canberra School of Art. I noticed she had some string tied around her wrist. At first I thought it was some practical material related to a workshop she was assisting on the day. But [...]
Buddy, can you spare design?
image There’s a raging debate in the US media about the call to bring design into account for its recent elitism. Echoing the recriminations over reckless financial dealers on Wall Street, Michael Cannell argued in the New York Times that the indulgent excesses of celebrity design will be a natural victim to the economic downturn. [...]
A day for the makers
image Barack Obama marks the inauguration of his Presidency with a homage to labour and ‘the makers of things’: Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of [...]
Global prosumerism
The Americans have a love of coining new phrases. To antipodean ears, they can seem verbal gadgets, eagerly assembled for momentary pleasure. The term ‘prosumerism’ is a combination of consumer and producer. Bringing them together seems a ‘neat’ way of having best of both worlds – continuing the pleasures of shopping while assuming the authority [...]
The Kula model of jewellery exchange
image Non-western jewellery provides intriguing possibilities for contemporary ornament. In 1920, the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski published an account of an elaborate jewellery trading network in eastern New Guinea, known as Kula. Kula entails the exchange of two different sets of ornament. In a clockwise direction, long necklaces of red spondylus shell (soulava) travel from [...]
Zulu Bead-Mail
image South African craft is characterised by an abundance of beaded products. One of the most charming is the Zulu Love Letter, which according to legend developed when Zulu men began working in the mines. As they were illiterate, communication from sweethearts back in home took for the form of ornament, where particular coloured beads [...]
Signs of Change – are you interested?
image The election of Barack Obama seems to have galvanised the world at a time of great social risk. Some have seen the current financial crisis as an important opportunity to ‘re-boot’ the system, to develop more constructive bilateral relations and initiate more inclusive policies. With the glow of change in the air, there is [...]
