PNG

Yes it’s there, yes its real
No I’ve never been there.
No I don’t know anyone from there.

One day in 1989 we went on college residential to NY City.
NY is NOT North Carolina, oh No,
It’s capitalized, it’s a hub, a port, statuesque, self-important, vague, corseted, and knowing.
In this place I met Papua New Guinea for the first time.
A most unexpected meeting.

It was a cold February day, so cold I had to buy an extra jumper and hat
So cold I thought I was going to throw up walking there
Then Metropolitan Museum – Grand, Vast
It eclipses nations and gobbles them up
Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and here in this room named after a millionaire’s son (who died there), the Oceanic rooms.

I must have seen this work before, but didn’t have eyes to see it really,
I must have encountered this culture at British museums but in small fragments as part of other collections.
There is was a vast array of never before seen items, as if from another world.
Warrior boats to seat 100 men inlaid and carved totem poles
as high as a 4 floor Hebden house, masks, costumes, shields.
How have I never seen this before?
Have I seen it and not looked?

As long ago a trip to Heraklion museum, pulled by the arm on a quick march round the show-cases by mother with the promise of ice cream if we submitted meekly.


Here and now, this Bisji Pole from PNG is the most amazing piece of art I have ever seen.
Intricate in its piercing the carvings narrating creation, battles, animals, tribes, warriors, outsiders.
This made my body respond, it was raw, powerful. It had meaning, it felt important.
This was the greatest art I had never seen, it was like falling in love. It was my obsession.

Why had this been hidden? And revealed only now? What did it mean? Who made them?
How could I understand more deeply the meaning, intention and purpose of such items?
It was my task to find out,

To know.

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