The winds blew, a sudden cold snap made us grateful, as one of the organisers remarked hopefully, to be inside at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) for three days. And after months of preparation the conference began. Not without a bumpy start, the aeroplane en route from Sydney with Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the on-going ‘Tatau/Tattoo’ project and opening night keynote speaker, was tossed about in the strong winds, making the initial landing difficult. Questions of inclusion, exclusion, who is authorised to speak and who to listen crept, with the same determination as the cold, under our skin.
Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin, Samoan Studies, VUW and Chair of the first session on the morning of the first day, reminded us that according to Samoan tradition it is customary to acknowledge the spirit ancestors who attend such meetings. The spirit that came to prevail was one of mutual respect, openness, a rich diversity of viewpoints, deep disagreement, but enduring friendship. For me, one of the most moving examples of this quality of friendship was the spontaneous performance of spoken word poetry, written by co-convenor Teresia Teaiwa and performed with Sia Figiel, novelist and poet. The words and the interchange of voices were haunting in their love and truthfulness.
Something seemed to happen in the conference that echoed the process of tatau. Debates that arose throughout about how to bring ideas of traditional culture into the contemporary world brought the pain of history and interaction to the surface. Blood was shed. Others spoke passionately about how to maintain and respect what is seen as the traditional while facing the reality of exchange and interaction. We were reminded that tatau artists are, and always have been, agents for change as well as guardians of tradition. And what to do in a mixed-up world where travel and exchange and cross-cultural relationships of real and enduring strength exist and have existed for as long as people have travelled, not just across vast oceans, but within the smallest and most intimate spaces?
And equally how do we acknowledge and talk of the great pain, the enormous suffering that has accompanied cross-cultural interactions? Who and what gets lost? The conference itself mirrored these debates providing an extremely rich territory for dialogue and exchange. Research scholars from Aotearoa, America, Australia, Japan, Samoa, Russia, and London brought their findings to an audience of writers, artists, choreographers, academics. The contradiction between sometimes offensive early ethnographic and anthropological recordings of the tradition of so-called ‘dying cultures’ and the now urgent interest by people from those same cultures in those practices was an ironic but integral part of the work discussed.
I want to finish by telling of the kindness, the attention to detail. I want to tell of the wide array of voices and ideas that were spoken and of the overlying influence of mutual respect for all voices. Somehow the words don’t seem enough. And all of us who participated, those who spoke, those who played the invaluable often under-rated role of listener, those who worked hard for long hours above and beyond job descriptions to organise the event, Su’a Vitale Fa’alavelave and the young man he tataued, all of us left that remarkable conference marked, for the better, and for many indelibly, by the exchange.
Thanks again to the team of people involved in imagining and organising this meeting.
Anna Cole, London-based Research Co-ordinator, ‘Tatau/Tattoo: Embodied Art and Cultural Exchange’ with Cassi Plate, Sydney-based writer.
T-Shirts
A limited number of conference t-shirts are still available. Please contact Diana Felagai at Pacific Studies.
