The Development of Contemporary Oceanic Arts

Abstract

Over the last three hundred years Westerners have deliberately degraded traditional standards of evaluation of Pacific Cultures, imposing alien standards of judgement that have stymied original creativity in Pacific societies. At the tailend of the twentieth century the University of the South Pacific embarked on a programme of original creativity aimed at the development of contemporary arts that are vibrantly and distinctively Oceanic. This paper provides an outline of the programme that has attracted increasing attention from within and outside the Pacific Islands region.