Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the ambivalences of European perceptions of the Pacific and juxtaposes them with the indigenous visual cultures that challenge western assumptions about art and representation. It yields a fresh understanding of history, colonialism and culture in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
Trade Review'… the reader comes away enlightened and sensitized to many of the ways in which imagination and reality have entangled in the imaging of Oceania - a laudable contribution to an important and growing field.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Table of ContentsIntroduction Nicholas Thomas; Part I. Voyages: 1. Reimagining Juan Fernandez: probability, possibility and pretence in the South Seas Jonathan Lamb; 2. Images of monarchy: Kamehameha I and the art of Louis Choris Harry Liebersohn; 3. Art as ethnohistorical text: science, representation and indigenous presence in 18th and 19th century oceanic voyage Bronwen Douglas; Part II. Colonies: 4. The penitentiary as paradise Michael Rosenthal; 5. Under Saturn: melancholy and the colonial imagination Ian McLean; 6. Looking at Goldie: face to face with 'All 'e Same t'e Pakeha' Leonard Bell; Part III. Imaginings Beyond Colonialism: 7. Voices beyond the Pae Robert Jahnke; 8. The importance of birds: or, the relationship between art and anthropology reconsidered Diane Losche; Part IV. Counter-Colonial Imaginings: 9. Past present: the local art of colonial quotation Joan Kerr; 10. Australian icons: notes on perception Gordon Bennett; Afterword: clumsy Utopians Peter Brunt.
