Speech for the Gelam Nguzu Kazi gala evening
29 January 2007; Holiday Inn, Port Moresby
Australian High Commissioner to PNG, His Excellency Mr Chris Moraitis
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you all for coming to this gala event this evening to view and appreciate the magnificent exhibition of art works, Gelam Nguzu Kazi – Dugong My Son.
The striking limited-edition linocuts that you can see all around you were produced by four extremely talented artists from Mua Island in the western Torres Strait in northern Australia – Dennis Nona, Billy Missi, David Bosun and Victor Motlop.
The Australian Government, through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program, is proud to tour this exciting exhibition over the next three years throughout our global network of diplomatic missions.
As the Australian High Commissioner to PNG, it gives me great pleasure to say that PNG was chosen as the first destination for the exhibition outside Australia. This is in no small measure due to the close links that exist between our countries, and in the Torres Strait in particular.
We hope the exhibition will increase international recognition of the Torres Strait Islands, their people and culture, and promote the work of Torres Strait Islander artists.
We also hope it will remind people that Australia is an open and tolerant society that values very highly the culture and achievements of its indigenous citizens.
I should say that this exhibition is also one of the main features of Australia Week 2007 – a new event that we are staging for the first time in PNG. It is customary for us to celebrate Australia Day, but this is the first time we have staged an Australia Week in PNG.
Australia Week 2007 – which started on Australia Day, last Friday, and runs until this Friday – promotes Australia in PNG and highlights the strength of our relationship. Despite the differences that neighbours sometimes have, Australia and PNG remain close partners and friends.
Australians share a common aspiration with Papua New Guineans for a stable and prosperous PNG. A key goal that we share is a desire to tackle the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Unless interventions to address the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS are scaled up, over half a million Papua New Guineans could be living with the virus by 2025.
I feel very strongly that all of us – from leaders in government, business and civil society to regular ‘grass roots’ people – have a responsibility to help tackle the spread of HIV. Australia is committed to working with PNG in this endeavour.
To this end, Australia recently committed $100 million to fund a program, Sanap Wantaim. The program builds on the support that Australia has provided in recent years to help the PNG government, churches and private sector groups address the epidemic.
Sanap Wantaim is another visible example of our close relationship. The relationship between Australia and PNG is strong on many levels: between governments, businesses and people on both sides of the Torres Strait. Our relationship is also born of history and – of course – geography.
Nowhere is the geographical proximity greater than in the Torres Strait, where PNG and Australia are separated by no more than a short stretch of water.
As a result of this, Torres Strait Islanders have many cultural similarities with the people of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea.
But Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct people with their own culture and identity. They are also a sea-faring people, travelling long distances in search of turtles and dugong and trading with other islands and villages on the Papuan coast. Those themes are clearly visible in some of the art works on display in this exhibition.
The Australian Government values and supports the unique contribution Indigenous artists – including Torres Strait artists – make to the identity of Australia's culturally diverse society.
Gelam Nguzu Kazi is an important body of work from the Kubin Community on Mua Island in the Torres Strait.
In 2000, the Elders of Mua Island agreed to establish a print studio so that young printmakers could record the Islands’ special creation stories. These artists created an art movement based on the fine incising of traditional patterning into linoleum and printing onto archival paper.
Gelam My Son is the name the Elders gave to this special exhibition. Gelam, the dugong, is the primary totem for the people of Mua.
The exhibition was the first time that traditional Mua Island stories were recorded in a visual medium, since the loss of their material culture to missionaries and collectors before 1900.
I am pleased to say that, since these prints were first produced, international audiences have shown an increasing interest in this style.
I would like to close by thanking you all for coming here this evening and inviting you to view and appreciate this magnificent collection of art works from the Torres Strait.
I know PNG is rightly proud of its rich culture – and I am pleased to welcome a number of PNG artists to the event this evening. Just like PNG, Australia is proud of its culture. We are also proud of the significant contribution Indigenous artists make to the identity of Australia's culturally diverse society.
I hope you enjoy the exhibition this evening. Enjoy the prints, pick up a program to get further information and, of course, feel free to sign our comments book, which will be sent around the world with the exhibition.
Finally, I hope you enjoy Australia Week 2007.
Thank you.
END