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| Photo by Ketsin Robert. |
The
National Cultural Commission has once again come to easing and soothing the woes of
struggling Papua New Guinean writers, artists and musicians through the staging
of its National Symposium on Culture and the Arts.
This
was observed at the National Museum from 7th to 9th
November, 2012, and in collaboration with the National Museum, the Melanesian
Institute of Art and Culture, UNESCO, UOG and various institutional and private
bodies in town.
Among
the highlights of this event was the launching of the locally-made University of Goroka film “The Last Real Man”
by the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Honourable Boka Kondra.
The
main theme of the symposium was “harnessing the arts for national development”.
Papers presented were therefore of a variety of subject matter, not wandering too
far off from the theme, of course, although there were one or two powerful
oratories of some value during the course of the whole program.
Themes
covered at this three-day long symposium included the importance of culture and
the arts in nation building, cultural industries and the challenges facing
these, the actual development of cultural and creative industries, problems of
copyright, promotion and marketing, capacity building, heritage and the
cultural industries, views representing provincial perspectives and, finally,
the work of the writers and artists themselves.
Many
thought that the last session, appropriately titled “artists’ corner”, which
was devoted to writers, artists, musicians and film makers and headed by this
writer, was the fiery one of the lot. We’ve heard the best of oratories then.
Nonetheless the whole program was seriously observed and with many new things
learnt within the world of arts and letters.
An
interesting detail noted during the week was that of Professor John Waiko’s assertion and insistence upon the fact that while we still believe we have 800
languages there are, in fact, 1,100 plus pure languages in Papua New Guinea
today, with a few others yet to be discovered. But, warned the professor, on
yet another matter of relevance, if we do believe that we have that number of
languages in our country we must also provide material evidence as scholars do
throughout the world that we have been here on our island nation for the last
50,000 years.
Dr
Steven Winduo speaking on the importance of arts and culture in nation building
pointed out that there had been so much dug out of our country by way of
cultural research and knowledge with very little given back in return. And yet
these are crucial elements constituting our sense of culture, nationalism and
cultural inheritance or identity.
Another speaker on this topic, Mari Ellingson,
spoke of music as a significant aspect of our lives, touching as well on the
problems of copyright and pirating of local musical products or in simply
dealing with the industry itself in a manner that often brought little reward
to the musician as an artist. “Music comes from the heart,” said Ms Ellingson,
“the spirit, the soul.” Just as any other cultural unit it, too, needed
support, especially in funding. Examples cited, among others, was the lack of
facilities found at UPNG to cater for both staff and students of that
institution.
Aside
from the intellectual debates and discussions that went on there were poetry
readings and music provided in the evenings, culminating each day's proceedings. It was fun kind of a symposium, thanks to Dr Jacob Simet and his staff at
NCC and to Dr Andrew Moutu for providing the venue and necessary facilities for
the whole program.
But,
as it is often said of them, “Where there are writers and artists there is much
merriment and feasting.”
