Tiki: Marquesan Art and the Krusenstern expedition(5 Pacific Presences)

Created across the six islands of a remote archipelago in eastern Polynesia, the art of the Marquesas is one of the world’s most distinctive and remarkable art traditions. Though exhibited in major museums around the world, Marquesan art is nevertheless poorly understood, and the formation of collections still largely unresearched. This book documents and explores the most extensive early collection from the archipelago. In May, 1804, participants in the first Russian voyage round the world, usually known as the Krusenstern expedition after the principal commander, spent twelve days at the island of Nuku Hiva. Inspired by the science and collecting associated with the voyages of Captain James Cook, the mariners interacted with Islanders, and made extensive collections of artefacts. While the lives of the collectors and exchanges among scientists led to these artefacts being widely dispersed, the research reported here has identified some 200 objects collected during the voyage which are now in museums in Russia, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The outcome of years of work in museum stores and archives, Tiki reassembles a collection of exceptional importance. A set of essays contextualise these precisely-provenanced artefacts historically, and in the life and environment of the Marquesas Islands. For the first time, this heritage is made accessible to Islanders themselves, and to interested scholars and curators.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of abbreviations   Introduction – Nicholas Thomas   Part I – Collections   1 – Making collections: the Krusenstern expedition at Nuku Hiva – Elena Govor   2 – From Nuku Hiva to Europe: the collections’ histories – Elena Govor   Part II – Contexts   3 – Te Henua: the Marquesan environment – Pierre Ottino   4 – Nuku Hiva in 1825: Artefacts collected during the voyage of the Maria Reigersberg and the Pollux – Caroline van Santen   5 – A reflection on Marquesan art history – Nicholas Thomas   Part III – Catalogue   Tiki: A catalogue of artefacts from Nuku Hiva collected or recorded by members of the Krusenstern expedition – Elena Govor with Nicholas Thomas, Maia Nuku, Julie Adams, Katharina Haslwanter, Ekaterina Balakhonova   Sources

About the Author :
Elena Govor was born in Russia and now lives in Australia, where she completed her doctorate in history at the Australian National University in 1996. Her research focuses on cross-cultural contacts between Russians and the peoples of the Pacific and Australia, in publications including: ‘Speckled Bodies: Russian Voyagers and Nuku Hivans, 1804’ in Nicholas Thomas et al., Tattoo: Bodies, Art and Exchange in the Pacific and the West (Reaktion Books, 2005); Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva: Russian Encounters and Mutiny in the South Pacific (UHP, 2010), chapters about South Pacific collections in Russian museums in Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art & European Museums, and Tiki: Marquesan Art and the Krusenstern Expedition. In affiliation with the Australian National University, she has collaborated on the international projects: ‘Tatau/tattoo: Embodied art and cultural exchange’ (Getty Grant Program); ‘Artefacts of encounter’ and ‘Pacific Presences: Oceanic art and European museums’ (Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology); and ‘The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific – a hidden history’ (ANU). In 2003 she visited Nuku Hiva in the footsteps of the Krusenstern expedition; and conducted fieldwork in 2010, 2011 and 2014 in New Guinea and New Caledonia. She is currently working with Chris Ballard (ANU) on a long-term project researching Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay’s exploration, encounters and drawings in Oceania. Prof. Dr. Nicholas Thomas was an undergraduate at the Australian National University from 1979 to 1982; his BA (Honours) thesis, on Fijian politics, was supervised by Anthony Forge. He visited the Pacific first in 1984 to undertake doctoral research in the Marquesas Islands and has since written extensively on exploration and cross-cultural encounters and on art histories in the Pacific. He has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge since 2006.