"What is Melanesian art today? Who are the artists? What are the subjects of their art? Art and Life in Melanesia provides a timely exploration of contemporary Melanesian artists and their creative voices. It covers major cultural themes including kastom, Christianity, Indigenisation and Globalisation, Markets, Festivals, Diasporas, urban culture and politics. Each theme focuses on ideas, issues and some specific arts practices, drawing examples from a few localities. Art and Life in Melanesia is based n many years of research in the region and will be an extremely welcome and timely addition to the publishing on this subject." --Dust jacket.

Melanesia is one of the most culturally diverse and artistically fertile regions of the world. This book is an exporation of one of the richest collections of Melanesian art, that of the British Museum. It is the product of sustained dialogue with people from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, West Papua, and New Caledonia, who are authors or co-authors of many of its chapters. Melanesia: Art and Encounter is a companion to this outstanding collection. The book ranges over an extraordinary variety of historic and modern art forms, from striking masks and shell valuables to intricately woven fabrics, string bags, and paintings on canvas. It investigates histories of exploration and exchange, conversion to Christianity and cultural revival, drawing upon a wealth of new information gleaned from archives, photographs, oral histories, and dialogue with Melanesians. The book is a revelation, not only of the arts of Melanesia, but also of the challenges and possibilities of collaborative research today.

Excerpt from Melanesians and Polynesians: Their Life-Histories Described and Compared MY acquaintance with the natives of the East and West Pacific extends over a term of forty eight years. During that time I resided in Samoa for fourteen years continuously, from 1860 to 1874, and I have often visited the group in later years. In 1875 I landed in New Britain, now named the Bismarck Archipel. At that time there was no white man living in the group, and practically nothing was known of those islands or of the people living there. I resided there until the end of 1880, with the exception of the time occupied by two visits to Australia, and I have revisited that group on several occasions since that time. My acquaintance with the great Solomon Islands group began in the year 1879, and since then I have visited the group on several occasions. During these many voyages I have visited Tonga, Fiji, New Hebrides, Santa Cruz, New Ireland, New Hanover, New Guinea, the large atolls of the Ontong Java and the Tasman groups, and many others of the smaller islands in the Pacific. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The vivid art forms of Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and New Zealand are rooted in their religious cultures. This relationship is still apparent in the new and ever-evolving art forms of the modern Pacific world.