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Contemporary Tongan Artists and the Reshaping of Oceanic Identity
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277 Contemporary Tongan Artists and the Reshaping of Oceanic Identity Paul van der Grijp According to Epeli Hau‘ofa, “in cultural creativity we can carve out our own spaces, in which we set the rules, the standards that are ours, fashioned to suit our circumstances, and to give us the necessary freedom to act in order to bring out the best in us. The realization of this potential can unleash an enormous creative energy that could help to transform and reshape the face of contemporary Oceania in our own image” (2005: 11–12). Here, the crucial message is the claim of freedom to explore and represent one’s own identity in an artistic way. Epeli Hau‘ofa makes this claim against limitations imposed by both indigenous authorities (the chiefs, the churches, or the family) as well as foreign (European) artistic standards (Suva, personal communication, 2006). The ethnographic material analyzed in this chapter may illustrate what this claim entails. Material culture studies in “folklore or ethnology” have, to quote another relevant author in this context, been preoccupied for a long time with “handmade objects created by makers who are members of what are perceived to be isolated groups, uncorrupted by the outside forces of industrialization and [Western] popular culture” (Pocius 1997: 6). The ethnology concerned dealt with “folk craft” and “folk art,” that is, with “the products of pre-industrial or semi-industrial cultures not yet caught up in the main stream of mass culture” (ibid.). In this, the notion of authenticity was crucial, and the objects concerned reflected this. In recent decades the emphasis in these kinds of studies has shifted from the creation of objects to their functions, from design as an expression of “an individual’s aesthetics” to economic considerations. The focus too has been redirected to the notions of tradition and authenticity—cultural constructs indeed. More generally, the rise of material culture and folklore studies may be considered as an academic preoccupation with authenticity, and in this research more attention should be paid to the backgrounds of the makers of these kinds of products. As an anthropologist I do not limit my research interests simply to “ethnology” in Pocius’ perspective, although I do feel it worthwhile to follow his advice (see in this respect also Marcus and Myers 1995; Phillips and Steiner 1999; and Myers 2002). This is what I will do here by taking a close look at five Tongan artists and vendors of art and craft, including their biographical backgrounds, the social organization of their enterprises, projects for the future, and the artists’ ideas about the relation between art and craft. The Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga is situated in the southern hemisphere, east of 278 | Contemporary Tongan Artists and the Reshaping of Oceanic Identity Fiji, west of Samoa and north of New Zealand. Tonga consists of some 150 tropical islands and has a predominantly Polynesian population of about 100,000 people within its borders, with an additional 50,000 Tongans living overseas. Tonga is an independent nation-state that has never been colonized, but it was a British protectorate between 1900 and 1970.1 The changing context of Tongan artists is an increasingly monetarized economy and mobility of persons, ideas, goods, and money. The shifting meanings concern wood and bone carvings, which are now produced for a tourist market inside the country that consists not only of foreign tourists, but also of emigrated Tongans visiting their home country. It is my aim to show some of the daily preoccupations of these Polynesian artists and, in so doing, to make them less exotic, with the words of Condominas (1965) in mind: L’exotique est quotidien: the exotic is a daily matter. Female Tongan wood carver (Tonga, 2006). Photo: Paul van der Grijp. [44.204.65.189] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:35 GMT) van der Grijp | 279 Business Strategies ofTongan Artists Lopati, our first example, was born on Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga, sixty-three years ago.2 Since his early youth, he has been keen on drawing. His parents sent him to a technical school in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, but he was not really interested in mechanics, and he asked to be allowed to go to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, where he obtained a scholarship. So when Lopati was nineteen years old, he studied fine arts there. Returning to Tonga, Lopati was unemployed and, moreover, had no money to buy materials for oil painting as he had had in Honolulu. Nevertheless, he...