FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF THE ARTS OF OCEANIA Book Review by Rod Ewins By Roderick H Ewins

https://www.academia.edu/21939726/FUTURE_DIRECTIONS_IN_THE_STUDY_OF_THE_ARTS_OF_OCEANIA_Book_Review_by_Rod_Ewins?nav_from=e4b9b072-080d-4ef5-8422-19f907fa5816 Professor Sidney Mead describes the papers [in this group of papers from the 49th ANZAAS Conference] as covering 'a wider range than at most previous conferences on the Pacific' — specifically, wood¬carving (Bernard Kernot), music and dance (Peter Crowe, Allan Thomas and Jennifer Shennan) and oral narratives (Judith Huntsman). The emphasis on the performing as distinct from the plastic arts is probably fairly representative of the bias of scholarship in the art of Oceania at present, and this in itself is interesting. It is reflected in the priority given music and dance by the UNESCO Oceanic Cultures Project set up in the late 60s, which Crowe in his paper supposes 'were thought more vulnerable than others, such as handicrafts'. It may just as possibly be that even those who should know better will persist in regarding the plastic arts of Island peoples as handicraft — an inherently patronizing and belittling term. ...