Tribal Art

Oceania is a world relatively unknown from far away Europe, except for large lands like Australia or New Zealand, fully integrated into the Western world. For the rest, the geography of Oceania is difficult to master: a few thousand islands hardly representative on planispheres or world maps, lost in the immensity of the ocean. It is rather paradoxical that this vast maritime territory has been called the 5th "continent". But links constantly rewoven by incessant travel between the islands ensure this unity. History is no less there than elsewhere, during which societies with extremely rich contents, inherited from the superimposition of migratory waves and repeated exchanges, will blossom. The result is a mosaic that one might find complex, but which is no more complex than the profusion of languages and cultures that interpenetrate in contemporary Europe.
Oceania. Travels in the immensity is an invitation to discover the 5th continent through material testimonies that the centuries have preserved. We like to classify these vestiges in the category of artistic expressions. In truth, we don't really know the perception of art that the islanders of the past had, but the aesthetics of their productions is undeniable and fascinating. Masks, weapons, architecture, representations of gods, ancestors or spirits, the Oceanians designed all this to manage their visions of the world and they never ceased to surpass themselves to make these objects effective and efficient, and therefore beautiful, as sincere reflections of their history and their identities.

Author: Nicolas Cauwe
Color photographs by Raoul Pessemier & Iona Thys
Condition: NEW
Language: French
Number of pages: 144
Dimensions: 280 x 210 mm
Paperback
ISBN : 978-9074746021