Tag Archives: Fiji

The Ba Experience – jewellery workshop in Fiji

Ilse-Marie Erl with her team in Fiji

Ilse-Marie Erl with her team in Fiji

Currently I am working as a private consultant for The Value Chain Analytical Group PARDI-ACIAR of the University of Adelaide. In short I am on a research project in Ba, a little town far off the tourist trail in the north of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, for all together 7 weeks. I am up skilling a group of 10 women and one man in the handling of mother of pearl to produce souvenir and jewellery items using the side product of the famous Hunter Pearls from Savusavu, Vanua Levu. The group is part of the Ba Women’s Forum, an umbrella for some of the many women’s clubs operating in every village here and calls itself WoW (women of work/ worth). The ladies are mature women who are trying to gain skills and knowledge that might help them setting up a sustainable cottage industry with the prestigious ‘Fiji made’ accreditation.

My assignment is to set up a professional shell working workshop with wonderful top of the range equipment (without going green with envy) that has been funded by the Universities of Adelaide and Suva. Further I am translating mass produced neck pieces from Bali into local designs. Little do we tourists know that most of the souvenir items sold in shops or by locals at the beaches are actually made in Southeast Asia. Part of the outcome of this exercise is intended for Robert Kennedy, a fashion designer from Sigatoka who will present his fashion range and our neck wear end of May at the Fiji Fashion Show in Suva. In addition I have to design a production line to be sold at the ubiquitous Tappoo department stores. The ideal is to leave the group with the skills required to keep designing, producing and promoting their authentic and indigenous mop jewellery.

Quality control, quality control, quality control, quality control, quality control…

Quality control, quality control, quality control, quality control, quality control…

My challenges are many and remember I am NOT sitting at a beach sipping nice drinks. Ever heard of Fiji time? Fun when on holiday, not so fun when working within a very tight time frame. Ever contemplated the complexities of aid projects? Extremely complicated and at times very frustrating. However, it is a fantastic experience, the wonderful people, the multicultural aspects of Fiji, the awesome food (think spicy Indian), and walking home tired from a days hard work (yes, hard work) up the hill past a lush green tropical scenery to my charming Filipino guest family, hearing a muezzin calling from a mosque, some Hindu chanting in a temple and gospel singing in a church, all within a few hundred meters. Sounds like heaven to me. And it is warm, always.

Clay beads and vau have arrived from Natunuku village.

Clay Beads from Natunuku Village

Just outside the village of Natunuku in the province of Ba, is the special place to collect black clay for making beads. The clay gets sifted through to remove all stones and grit. Water in which cassava (an edible starchy tuberous root) has been boiled and some sand are mixed thoroughly into the matter to make the soft clay firmer. White sand from the beach is used first but to make sure the clay retains its black colour sand from the muddy black mangrove area of the sea is added later on. This mixing in of sand and cassava water is continued till the clay has the right consistency. To check a roll of clay is formed and wrapped around a finger. If the roll does not break the clay is ready to be used. It now has a smooth and almost oily consistency. The beads need to dry in the sun for 1-2 days. Then they are put on the ground and a fire is build over them using mangrove wood. For black coloured beads the firing time is 2 hours and for brown coloured ones it is 4-6 hours. After firing the beads are lightly varnished.

During the time it takes to make these beads the women are not allowed to have sex. Women who are menstruating are not allowed to make beads. These restrictions are called tabu and are still in place today.

 

Voivoi cord made by Kini

Voivoi is the fibre of the long, sharp blade-like leaves of the pandanus plant. First these leaves are boiled and then laid out to dry in the sun. Once dry the wrinkled leaves need to be smoothed out by pulling them back and forth over a metal rod or file. Now they are ready to be cut into thin strips to be used for weaving. Voivoi is sold in rolls at the markets in its natural colour and in black. Black voivoi is made by boiling the material in a leaf from a little shrub. Almost every Fijian home features hand woven voivoi mats. Kini from our group is using the fibre to weave the cords for our neckpieces.

Urmilla is modelling a Paddle sample of the production line

Urmilla is modelling a Paddle sample of the production line

Naz is modelling a sample of the Triangle range

Naz is modelling a sample of the Triangle range

Sai is modelling a sample of the Banana Boat range

Sai is modelling a sample of the Banana Boat range

Sisi is modelling a sample of the Vula (moon) range

Sisi is modelling a sample of the Vula (moon) range

Bula, WoW Ba proudly presents a sneak preview of some of our pieces for the Robert Kennedy range for Fiji Fashion Week in Suva end of May. These are our ingredients plus mother of pearl and a lot of work and patience:

Samples of the Robert Kennedy range and our work at the Fiji Fashion Show in Suva

Samples of the Robert Kennedy range and our work at the Fiji Fashion Show in Suva

Samples of the Robert Kennedy range and our work at the Fiji Fashion Show in Suva

Samples of the Robert Kennedy range and our work at the Fiji Fashion Show in Suva

Gina Narayan–an Indian necklace across the Pacific

Gina Narayan

Gina Narayan

Gina Narayan is a product of the Pacific Indian diaspora. Her forbears arrived in Fiji as indentured labourers for the sugar plantations. Born as a third generation Indian in Fiji, Gina’s family moved to Australia, where she eventually developed a profession as digital marketer. But to re-connect with her past, she has taken to a much more material medium, jewellery.

Her works draws on the material legacy of her family’s journey. Most of the Indians who arrived in Fiji were illiterate, so the story of their past rested particularly on the material remnants of their previous life. The Rajasthan origins of Gina’s family were most real in the bells that they retained. Gina has developed her own line of jewellery out of her worldly experiences under the label ji – Inspirations of Fiji.

These are her descriptions of work for the exhibition Welcome Signs.

Gina Narayan 'Term Deposit' coral and silver coin

Gina Narayan 'Term Deposit' coral and silver coin

Coral and Silver coin – Red coral symbolises cultures that have come to the shores of Fiji in search of a new life (either by choice or as indentured labours). The Silver coin a significant symbol of the Indian influence in Fiji’s past.

 

 

 

 

 

Gina Narayan 'Dusky Moon' black onyx and shel

Gina Narayan 'Dusky Moon' black onyx and shel

Black Onyx and Shell – Onyx, the core of Fiji with the shell representing & being a significant symbol of its indigenous past. The red corals among the strong Onyx represent other cultures that have come to the shores of Fiji and are now an integral part of Fiji.

Share your charms

Southern Charms: New Power Jewellery Across the Pacific

Exhibition in development

Announcing a project to reveal new developments in ‘power jewellery’ that bring together craft cultures across the Pacific ocean. ‘Power jewellery’ claims to not only to be an object of beauty, but also to have an effect on its wearer. Most commonly, it protects the wearer against ill fortune. While traditionally this has been associated with superstitions, such as the evil eye, in this case the ‘power’ is understood as the strength that is sustained through social relations, such as friendship, solidarity or hospitality. The project is to explore ways of re-casting traditional forms of the charm for a modern secular world.

The net is cast across the Pacific, including Anglo cultures in Australasia, Aboriginal indigenous jewellery, Pacific islander ornament and charms from the Andean cultures on the Pacific’s eastern edge.

As well as providing new tools for social support, the Southern Charms project also aims to foster new conversations and networks across the Pacific. You can find out more at www.craftunbound.net/projects/southern-charms.

For expressions of interest, please contact Kevin Murray by email at charm(at)craftunbound.net. At this stage, examples of work are most welcome. Please note, the works will include charms that are designed to be used by others, rather than purely personal reflections on culture. An important question to consider is how their power be released into the world. The exhibition is planned to open in 2012.

Future events:

  • Workshop in Santiago, Chile (May 2010)
  • Workshop with the Melbourne State of Design Festival (July 2010)
  • Grass to Gold jewellery conference in Delhi (Feb 2011)
  • Workshops in Pacific (TBC)

Subscribe to Craft Unbound updates to be notified of future posts on the charmed theme.

Craft in Fiji – more than souvenirs

Senaloli Sovea at the Wasawasa Festival of the Oceans

Senaloli Sovea at the Wasawasa Festival of the Oceans

As a matriarch of the Fijian craft scene, Seniloli expresses a strong commitment to traditional values. The first value is silence when being taught. ‘You watch! If you ask questions, half the time you forget. Your head will be creating new ideas.’ The second is to keep it personal. ‘I don’t want to be taken in by retailers. I’d rather sell it on the price that I am happy, and that’s it.’ This doesn’t just mean a good return to the craftsperson – it can also mean giving something away as a gift.

I was in Fiji to participate in a craft workshop organised by the Fiji Arts Council with the Pacific Arts Alliance. This coincided with a remarkable cultural feast.

The second Wasawasa Festival of the Oceans brought craftspeople from across the Pacific. Under one tent were gathered makers from Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cooke Islands, French Polynesia, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Aotearoa and, of course Fiji. It was a spirited gathering, particularly when the Tongans were in full song.

The festival coincided with the Miss South Pacific Pageant, which may sound clichéd, but turned out to be quite serious. Environment was the theme of this year’s contest. Over a gruelling week, each island’s representative had to demonstrate not only their beauty and charm, but also their cultural depth and political aptitude. As much as anything, the contestants provided elegant hosts for some stunning traditional fabrics and jewellery. Thankfully, Miss Fiji ended up winning the crown, and her thoughtful speech would put most politicians to shame. Next year it moves to PNG.

The Wasawasa Festival also included the first in what will hopefully be a series of craft workshops for local practitioners. For an outsider palagi (white person) like me, it was a wonderful way to learn about the local scene. Where people happy in their craft or did they seek something more? Was it becoming increasingly difficult to produce traditional craft? Did the tourist market seem limited to kitsch curios? Was there interest in product development and export?

One has to be careful here. Hidden in this questions is the assumption that it is the responsibility of the outsider to fix the problems in a poorer country. This certainly seems the foundation of much Australian involvement in the region. But craft challenges that position. As Seniloli noted during the workshop, packaging your culture for foreign markets involves many compromises. What was previously exchanged as part of meaningful rituals is now reduced to the universal currency of dollar bills. Objects disappear into the ether, rather than building a chain of reciprocation.

But if it’s a choice between sustaining or losing a tradition, it may be a compromise that makers feel is necessary. In which case, there are ways of building on the phenomenon of ethical consumerism to extend this symbolic chain across cultures.

Representatives of the ANZ Bank discussing micro-finance

Representatives of the ANZ Bank discussing micro-finance

The workshop covered a range of topics, including ethical trends, supply chains, micro-finance, Fair Trade and Traditional Knowledge as Intellectual Property. Fiji is pioneering quite an important application of Regional Framework for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Culture developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in 2002 (can be downloaded here). This involves a cultural mapping of traditional knowledge throughout the villages of Fiji and the establishment of a system whereby use of these materials can be vetted and authorised. It’s a daunting project, but they are nearly half way.

During the workshop we heard a number of stories about opportunities for export had been lost because local makers were unable to meet deadlines due to unexpected contingencies. While this was initially attributed to lack of experience in doing business, there were some who thought that they were right to put personal obligations first.

To bring out the issues further, we adapted the role play previously titled ‘Good Intentions are Not Enough’. This time, the ‘Big Picture’ focused on the supply chain that stretched from an Andean village to a craft store in Vancouver. As happened previously, there were many hitches initially as the first products failed to gain sales in the urban market. However, this time, two new strategies emerged. First, the artisans decided rather than change their traditional methods to style a poncho, they would simply produce the yardage and have it finished in a factory down in Cuzco. Second, one of the parents decided to directly support the designers and artisans, rather then purchasing their products. The workshop showed how new pathways open up when there is a sense of partnership between producer and consumer.

The workshop concluded with a feeling that more needed to be done to connect craftspersons together, to learn of opportunities and to host future workshops dealing with specific issues like business skills and packaging. This provided an auspicious context for the launch of the Pacific Craft Network, as part of the Pacific Arts Alliance. This has the potential to re-establish a presence for the World Craft Council in the Pacific region.

In all, the workshop was powerful testament to a renewed spirit in craft across Fiji and the Pacific. This craft is much more than kitschy souvenirs for tourists. The challenge now seems to be how to build on these strong foundations.

The following days gave me the opportunity to get to know the craftspersons a little better. But that’s for the next post.