--- publish: true URL: --- > [!META]+ Meta > Source:: Indian Ocean Craft Triennial Catalogue 2021 > Author:: Kevin Murray Date:: 2021 Themes:: [[Indian Ocean]] Tags:: # The fruits of curiosity: Craft in the expanded field > My eyes wandered to the moonlit sea and I was reminded of a phrase that recurs often in the Merchant legends of Bengal: sasagara basumati– ‘the ocean’d earth’. At that moment I felt that I was surrounded by all that was best about our world– the wide open sea, the horizon, the bright moonlight, leaping dolphins, and also the outpouring of hope, goodness, love, charity and generosity that I could feel surging around me. Amitav Ghosh Gun Island (2019) Oceans instil their own patterns of life. The lands they touch can share a similar nature, thanks to regional weather patterns and roaming creatures of the sea. And the travel that water affords helps create connections between those lands, which has been especially important before air travel, when those cultures were forged. This is particularly so for the Indian Ocean, which facilitates travel through cyclical monsoonal patterns in the north and ‘roaring forties’ in the south. Before the advent of European imperialism in the sixteenth century, religions such as Islam and Jainism helped forge a culture of hospitality that underpinned trade (Ghosh, 2011). By contrast, the global trade of Western imperialism involved more coercive forms of connection, such as the mass migration that occurred with indentured labour in the nineteenth century when the Indian Ocean became known as the ‘British Lake’. For a settler-colonial nation such as Australia, events like the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial play a role in finding its own way in the world. In Christmas of 1941, with the fall of British Singapore, Prime Minister John Curtin (1941) made a radio address urging Australians to look across the Pacific to the USA, ‘free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.’ Accordingly, the twentieth century saw a strong focus on the Asia Pacific region as Australia loosened its ties to its imperial parent country. But now, as the United States is no longer the preeminent superpower, Australia must expand its horizons, beginning with the other ocean that flanks the continent. ### How did we get here? While individual countries may focus on their own unique cultures, arts festivals can play a key role in fostering connections. In this regard, Perth has a strong history of bringing the region together. As mentioned in the catalogue introduction, this began with the Indian Ocean Festivals of the late 1970s, restarted in 1987 when ARX (Australia and Regions Exchange) began nurturing creative exchanges between Australia and South East Asia, which pre-dated Queensland’s first Asia Pacific Triennial in 1993. Western Australia also played an important role in the South Project (2004-2007) which sought to develop a network of artists and craftspersons across the latitude. The International Artist Residency in the Wheatbelt town of Kellerberrin provided an important node for southern visitors and Nalda Searles made fibre connections across the ocean in the Johannesburg gathering of 2007. The project was underpinned by a call from South African Mbulelo Mzamane (2004) for a ‘rediscovery of the ordinary’. This drive to locate creativity beyond the gallery resonates with the ‘rituals of the everyday’ in this inaugural Indian Ocean Craft Triennial. This Triennial considers the Indian Ocean from a craft perspective. How does craft help us understand the region? The writers in this catalogue offer compelling answers. Ashraf Jamal writes of the ‘bazaar nexus’ that has brought cultures and individuals together to exchange objects and people in ways that have led to hybridised identities. Nancy Adajania reflects on the ‘circuits of everyday life’ that involve the rituals of adornment in South Asian cultures. And while not writing about art specifically, Kim Scott’s essay in this catalogue provides an important Noongar perspective on a stone tool that was destined for a museum but was instead returned to its original keeping place. The museum can play a role in acknowledging the value of the object, but it is only part of the journey. The particular framework of this Triennial highlights the ritual context of the object. The practice of community and individual ritual features strongly in the votive traditions of the Indian Ocean region. We know of votives as offerings that are presented in sacred spaces such as temples, altars or sacred trees. These harken back to the religious practice of sacrifice as a way of maintaining good relations with deities. To modern minds, these votives seem to be based on a primitive belief in gods as versions of the terrestrial lords. Yet the votive practice itself has other benefits. The sense of gratitude implied in offerings has psychological and social value. Though dedicated to deities, the gifts are in the end often consumed for common enjoyment. As Neil MacGregor (2018) writes, ‘we lived with the gods before we lived at close quarters with each other.’ There is now a revival of crafts that afford votive practices, as reflected by the forager vases that enable the display of flora gathered during a daily walk (Senjen & Murdoch, 2021). The ritual of the votive often involves a journey, particularly a procession where offerings are carried to their temple abode. One of the most magical experiences for first world travellers is to stray across a religious or cultural parade. Suddenly, daytime business dissolves into a riot of song, dance and costume, as elaborate floral deities are carried or pulled along the street towards a temple or church. A Western country like Australia has virtually no equivalent of this votive street culture, apart from occasional stencil art or flowers at the site of a fatality. In its place are galleries and museums whose function as ‘white cubes’ is to strictly separate art objects from everyday life. These enable objects to be enjoyed in a secure public space, but they often obscure the journey that led them to the plinth. While predominantly using gallery spaces, IOTA has the challenge of forging a festival culture that alludes to the ritual behind the object. This has been a particular source of creativity in participating artists. To unlock, this dimension, we have to ask questions. ### Where did it come from? Provenance plays a key role in many of the works in IOTA. Melissa Cameron’s Juukan Tears is impressive as an installation, but that is the tip of the iceberg. For four months, from 13 January 2021, Cameron live-streamed the entire process of carving out 4,600 tears from the corrugated iron of her shed. Live-streaming is a contemporary form of the procession, particularly suited to lockdown. As a ritual, it shares a journey towards the final work. Provenance also plays an important role in Jewels of the Crown Land by fellow Western Australian, jeweller Sarah Elson. Elson casts native seed casings and flowers in silver that is sourced from gifted lemel (metal filings) and unwanted jewellery. These pieces testify to the value and resilience of indigenous flora. The sourcing of materials from across the Indian Ocean is a key element in many works. Liz Williamson’s epic Weaving Eucalyptus Project involves weavers and natural dyers from across the Indian Ocean. The spread of eucalyptus can be a mixed blessing, as its superior adaptability to harsh environments often pushes out native plant species. Williamson makes a virtue of this in using it as a common element across the Indian Ocean. Yee I-Lann works with the tikar, a woven mat which forms a platform for ritual, conversation and community in her Sabah culture located in the northern region of Malaysian Borneo. The process of working with the local weavers is intrinsic to the work. It is overlaid by imagery relating to and commenting on colonial interventions. Also from Malaysian Borneo, Anniketyni Madian draws from her Sarawak heritage in intricate wooden sculptures. In particular, she interprets the sacred Pua Kumbu textiles woven by Dayak women that are used in rites of passage. Madian gives these flat patterns a dynamic three-dimensional form. The subject of Susie Vickery’s work conjures up the fluidity of identity afforded by travel across the Indian Ocean. But the back story has its own trajectory of textile printers from West Bengal who added their distinctive craft to its production, including washing the fabric in the Ganges. This broader context for reading craft reflects a move to expand the field from its exclusive focus on the gallery. Namita Wiggers’ (2021) recent concept of the ‘craftscape’ seeks to engage with the social and political conditions involved in its production. This was preceded by the spatial framework developed in Contemporary Jewelry Perspectives (Skinner, 2013) which added contexts such as the ‘street’ and ‘body’ to the ‘plinth’ which is the default framework for evaluating craft. In diversifying the aesthetic contexts for craft, the modernist focus on originality is no longer essential for critical appraisal. Other values come into play, such as tribal identity and desire. Viewing the craft object in the gallery is thus a window into the world it came from, rather than an end in itself. ### Who is the local audience? Complementing our awareness of the works’ production is an understanding of how it is also consumed in its original context. The artists in IOTA look to how their communities might benefit from the work that is destined for metropolitan galleries. Andile Dyalvane’s recent ceramics have been used to revitalise ceremonies at a gathering of his OoJola clan of the Xhosa people in the village of Ngobozana, near Qobo-Qobo in the Eastern Cape. For IOTA, he collaborates with Zizipho Poswa to produce a gathering of works iZilo that help heal the wounds of displacement across the Indian Ocean. Both drawing on their personal totems, Dyalvane’s works also respond to cosmic connections with ancestors, as Poswa’s evoke the daily rituals of domestic life and the resilience of strong women in her community. Some draw on temple traditions. Desmond Lazaro’s pichhwai painting depicts raslila, the sacred circle dance of Krishna and the gopis. These paintings are hung in Hindu temples on special days to accompany the relevant ceremonies. In Thailand, Wuthigrai Siriphon creates versions of the Buddhist temple hanging banner, Tung. His Gleaming decay series features beetle wings that imply the processes of decay and which reflect a Buddhist emphasis on ephemerality. From a modernist perspective, traditional places of worship are superseded by more formalised galleries where the art works can be viewed on their own. But within the more bilateral context of the Indian Ocean, customary sites such as temples and ritual gatherings still play an active role in the life of the works. ### What does the art offer? A key recipient of the votive is the world of non-beings, including spirits, animals, the dead and the yet-to-be-born. Their implied presence challenges us to think about what the work might have to offer to those beyond the interests of humans alive today. The work by Arif Satar and Audrey Fernandes-Satar invokes the tiger as a creature charged with colonial anxieties. Their clay votive tigers are adorned with a combination of Rangoli patterns, used in the daily ritual of marking a household threshold with rice flour, and Makonde animal masks used in festivals around Mozambique. The ceramicist Madhvi Subrahmanian transplanted these rangoli-like rituals to urban pavements during lockdown. For IOTA she creates works that are inspired by the daily ritual of making cow dung patties for fuel. Others reference social practices such as offerings for guests in the work of Sanjib Chatterjee and Anjalee Wakankar, the KAARU design duo. The Thai textile artist Jakkai Siributr confronts loss, prejudice and longing in three quilts made from a combination of clothing from himself and his deceased mother. He made these as a way of maintaining a conversation with her spirit during the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown. By introducing the votive into our art spaces, IOTA broadens the audience to include not just the gallery visitors, or those who view the Triennial by remote means. This audience extends to the broader range of our concerns, including the beings who have made our world possible. ### Curiosity is the path forward The artists and organisers have done all the work thus far in gathering objects for us to experience in gallery spaces. It remains now for we viewers to play a critical role in bearing witness to the works. Alongside the finished pieces, there will be glimpses of the road travelled by these works in video and photographic documentation. We need to regard these not just as historic materials, but as essential to the meaning of the work. This regard requires an exercise of the imagination, particularly the capacity of curiosity. Curiosity opens us to the experience of enchantment. After the longueurs of the pandemic, we crave a little magic. As Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o observed, ‘Knowledge is the discovery of the magic of the ordinary.’ ### References Alpers, E. A. (2013) The Indian Ocean in world history. 1 edition. Oxford University Press (New Oxford World History). Curtin, J. (1941) ‘The task ahead’. Available at: http://john.curtin.edu.au/pmportal/text/00468.html (Accessed: 4 July 2021). Ghosh, A. (2011) In an antique land: History in the guise of a traveler’s tale. Vintage. Ghosh, A. (2019) Gun island: A novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. MacGregor, N. (2018) Living with the Gods: On beliefs and peoples. Knopf. Mzamane, M. V. (2004) ‘Beyond Mythification: Constituting a Southern Identity’, Southern perspectives. Available at: https://southernperspectives.net/beyond-mythification-constituting-a-southern-identity-by-mbulelo-vizikhungo (Accessed: 4 July 2021). Senjen, K. M. &. (2021) ‘fluxed earth ✿ Garden forage vases’, Garland magazine. Available at: https://garlandmag.com/loop/fluxed-earth/ (Accessed: 4 July 2021). Skinner, D. (2013) Contemporary jewelry in perspective. Lark, Jewelry & Beading. Thiong'o, N. Wizard of the crow New York: Anchor Books, 2007 (orig. 2006) Wiggers, N. ‘Unearthing the Craftscape’ American Craft Council, accessed 31 May 2021, URL: [https://www.craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/unearthing-craftscape](https://www.craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/unearthing-craftscape)