Conser.VĀ.tion|Acti.VĀ.tion: MUSEums, the body and MOAna arteFACTS
This paper explores my entanglement as an artist and maker of works acquired by the museum, and the manner in which the museum operates in keeping those works alive and present within a network of vā relations. It deploys the Samoan concept of vā to explore the Vā Body as an activator of mauli and vessel for past, present, and future; to activate new forms and narratives in the museum; and to develop a methodology to inform and influence a museum conser.VĀ.tion ethic.
The resulting uneasy narrative of exchanges and entanglements is the basis of this paper. Using my own creative practice and SaVĀge Methodology to address the following questions: First, how do museum professionals working with Moana artists and their material culture treat Indigenous modes of ‘thinking and being’? Second, how can the mana (prestige and authority) of Indigenous Moana arts and culture be recharged and experienced in contemporary museum and exhibition spaces? Third, how can the mauli (life force) of measina (treasures) be made present and be acknowledged in archives, and how might it be maintained? Finally, how can an embodied contemporary art and performance practice recharge measina and ensure that collections are not locked in the past?
This paper expands the notion that activating the mauli of measina in museum and archival spaces requires acknowledging the network of relations that artefacts are connected to. The vā and relational artefacts’ existence is channelled through gafa (genealogy) and many dimensional beings that each measina inhabits and carries, articulated as the Vā Body.
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