extrait magasine art monthly, henri Gama

’ (market of creative sustenance), a forum on creativity in all its forms – traditional and contemporary craft, environment, sustainable agriculture, local gastronomy, etc. – involving a shop, café, film projections, meetings and conferences.

P49 1/ Miriam Schwamm,

Le veilleur

(the watchman), acrylic on canvas and lightbox. Image courtesy the artist. Photograph by Marc Le Chélard. Expressing the struggle through art, ballpoint pen on paper. © ADCK-centre culturel Tjibaou and Teddy Diaike. Photograph by RIGHETTI. Treasure, 2007, digital print. Image courtesy the artist. éphanie Wamytan, Bamboo poles and mission robes installation. Image courtesy the artist. 5 0 # 2 3 2 A u g u s t 2 0 1 0 B o u n t i f u l O z P a c i f i c a I s s u e w w w . a r t m o n t h l y . o r g . a u A r t M o n t h l y A u s t r a l i a

2/ Teddy Diaike,

P50 1/ Thierry Fontaine,

2/ St

Henri Gama:

Collectivity. The self-determination referendum on the status of New Caledonia is scheduled for 2014.

(Les Arts Bougent) newspaper. This article is a translated and edited version of Gama’s article which was published in the July/ August 2010 edition (no. 5) of the Lab.

translated Gama’s article from French into English. Martin is a French-born photographer based in Darwin who has lived in Australia for the past twelve years.

Regis Martin

is editor in chief of the free Noumea-based Lab

Henri Gama

Yes, the creative quest is acceptance of ‘the movement’. Visual artists are a lot more bound to each other than we often believe. If they are individualist, deep down they are also close to other artists and share each other’s concerns. Here people from the theatre, from visual arts, and from the music world know each other and mix together more and more yet they stay themselves. This is very positive, these fusions and developments must be encouraged.

a

1. Jean-Marie Tjibaou was active in the Kanak struggle for independence in New Caledonia. In the early 1970s, he helped to organise the Melanesia 2000 festival, and in 1984 he founded the Front National de Liberation Kanak Socialiste (FNLKS); the same year he was appointed president of the New Caledonian provisional government. He was assassinated on 4 May, 1989, on the island of Ouvéa.

2. The Nouméa agreement (signed 5 May 1998) gave more autonomy to the principality of New Caledonia, changing its status from an Overseas Territory of France, to a

sui generis

Can art be a personal signifier as well as universal?

MS:

Who is an Oceanian artist? How do we live beyond past models? If New Caledonia is a country, it is first the one from the people that were here before but also of the descendents of those who arrived after. This equation needs to be dealt with, in spirit and in action. The road map is the Nouméa treaty (Accords de Nouméa). Artists can bring in elements of reflection. Do they have the answers? I don’t know, but they can create the basis for a dialogue, build creative foundations. Personally I feel very comfortable with Jean-Marie Tjibaou’s visionary sentence, ‘Our identity is in front of us’, and it can only help New Caledonia to progress forward, on a regional level and in what touches each of us personally on the artistic level.

HG:

The Caledonian delegation will comprise several artists of diverse origins. So where does Oceania stand?

MS:

Arts Dock is a specific way of saying to people ‘build your ideas and the sites that go with them’. Starting some projects that will continue in time is very important. For example, there is no longer a permanent biennial of contemporary art venue in New Caledonia; spaces were promised and they are not here. Yet people are showing their interest in visual arts and there is a real effervescence of projects.

Creativity must happen where people are. Arts Dock will happen on-site at the wharf, one of the most important of the Pacific islands. A strong symbol exists in relation to the container, inside of which the art will find a new home. The container is linked to regional circulation, between the islands and internationally. The container is today’s link in all facets: intimate, commercial, positive or negative. In Arts Dock we approach the question of market – art market, creativity market, ideas market – with those markets connected to our daily life, and the state of our environment. And the container is the quintessential carrier of these exchanges, of this walk toward the future. Like the dugout canoe that went from island to island, the principle of nomadism is at the heart of this project. We would also like to make this project nomadic, that it travels from country to country. This is also our way to pay homage to the Melanesian people who will be the guests of our spaces during the Melanesian Art Festival.

HG:

What are the intentions of Arts Dock?

Miriam Schwamm:

developed cultural practices. In the visual art world, the stakes are high. Developing the market for local art is a real challenge with the work of contemporary artists generally promoted through key federal events which cater to diverse public interests. The Melanesian Art Festival is a unique event to create contacts with related countries, to forge artistic and human links essential to the circulation of ideas and works of art as well as respect of identities.

Arts Dock is also the manifestation of Nouméa’s new biennial of contemporary art, and the future goal is to make it a regional creative project. To be as much about initiating as exhibiting creative endeavour, Arts Dock promotes the idea that art can take over any space as long as creativity is at the heart of the system. In this spirit, a printmaking (linocut) workshop will take place, in association with the Centre Culturel Tjibaou. For two weeks artists will be able to produce small editions of linocuts; all the tools and materials will be free of charge for the artists. The prints will then be exhibited on-site at Arts Dock during the festival, and for sale – the attraction of the fine art print in that it is still an original work of art at an affordable price for a large amount of people. The printmaking workshop will continue during the festival, along with other workshops in traditional pottery and weaving.

Artistic Director of Arts Dock Miriam Schwamm answers a few questions about the philosophy and scope of this innovative project for Nouméa:

These fifteen projects bring together Caledonian artists of all origins, representing diverse disciplines: performance and installation, painting and etching, sculpture, mixed media, and photography. The works in this art-laden container will be for sale, and spaces reserved on-site for the artists sent by their delegation.

The Caledonian art scene is in full mutation. More and more associations are forming, new galleries are opening, some artists with the support of institutions are gaining recognition and overcoming the difficulties linked to insularity. Nonetheless the cultural face of Caledonia is largely unknown to the outside despite having some strongly

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Arts Dock

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th

Melanesian Arts

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he fourth Melanesian arts festival is making a stop-over in New Caledonia

from 1 to 24 September. A thousand festival-goers coming from the four other associated countries, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu, will make New Caledonia pulse with songs, dances, and wide-ranging spectacles. For this new edition, a touring program has been planned. The three provinces and eight customary areas of New Caledonia will each successively be touched by the four ‘dugout canoes’ which will cross the country starting in Koné, in the north province where the opening will take place.

The driving force of this 4

th Melanesian Arts Festival will be the famous declaration by Jean-Marie Tjibaou (1936- 1989): ‘Our identity is in front of us’.1 At the heart of the festival will also be the so-called Nouméa agreement (1998)2

, aligned with this event’s well-publicised ambition to favour cultural diversity as the hallmark of the Caledonian delegation.

Nouméa will be the main centre for visual arts with a surprisingly innovative project: Arts Dock (Quai des Arts). The concept is a transfiguration of the usual conveyor of goods that comes and leaves by sea: the container. On this occasion the container will become a space for exhibition and creative exchange, assembled as an ephemeral village, from 16 to 26 September, at Nouméa’s James Cook Dock. A selection of fifteen artist projects will be packed in (like tinned sardines). Arts Dock will also be under the banner of ‘

marché créatif subsistence

Festival, Nouméa

HENRI GAMA