Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific

The first substantial project on the art of Fiji to be mounted in the U.S., Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA), showcases an eclectic range and quality of the archipelago's artworks from the past two centuries, providing insight into Fiji’s historical and cultural traditions.

Produced from the rich landscape of more than 300 islands, materials represented include a wide variety of timbers for housing, canoes, and weapons; plant materials for textiles, mats, roofing, ropes, and bindings; clay, bamboo, and coconuts for containers; and shells and other marine materials for adornments.

Drawn from major international collections, including the Fiji Museum, British Museum, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge), the Smithsonian, and distinguished private collections, the over 280 artworks

are presented in eight thematic sections.

Voyaging focuses on the role and implements of travel by sea. The show-stopping centerpiece is a newly commissioned, fully sailable, 26-foot double-hulled sailing canoe (drua) constructed in Fiji using traditional materials and techniques such as fiber lashings, shells, as well as a pandanus-leaf matting sail and is metal free. Without a fixed bow or stern, drua can sail in either direction by adjusting the mast and sail. The newly constructed dura is a small version of the great 100 feet long vessels of the 19th century, the biggest canoes ever built.

Fiber and Textile Arts features Masi, the magnificent cloth with virtuoso weaving techniques made from the paper mulberry tree bark pulp, for investitures, weddings, or state gifts. The artform is one of Fiji’s most significant symbols of cultural pride.

In Warfare, the multiple clubs on view represent the widest range of their design. In addition to their value as weapons, Fijian clubs and spears are used as ritual objects and expressions of supreme carving and military skill.

Embodying the Ancestors features one of the only three known surviving double-figure hooks made from whale ivory, collected in 1876. While it seems that figures were not worshipped as deities, they were kept in temples and shrines as embodiments of deified deceased individuals, usually ancestors.

In Adorning the Body, key forms of personal ornament consist of whale ivory as the basis for high worth. Breastplates, valued for their subtle design variations and alluring reflective and color properties, were suited for chiefly wear and were made from whale ivory, pearl shell, coir and fibre.

The section on Chiefly Objects highlights the tabua, a polished sperm whale tooth, the most significant Fijian valuable presented as a gift or negotiation tool on important occasions. For Fijians, whale teeth were symbolically associated with the cosmological power of the sea and of chiefs. This section also examines the cultural importance of yaqona, an important drink known generally in the Pacific as kava, still consumed by Fijians socially.

Respecting the Ancestors, provides insight on the early 19th century religious observance of dedicating temples mainly to divine ancestors rather than creator gods. The section features model temples which duplicate the architecture of full-scale temples and were possibly taken as portable shrines on canoe voyages.

Fiji Life highlights implements for the making of masi, an adze for cracking of ivi nuts, a bamboo tube for the transportation of water, and an end-blown trumpet for multiple forms of communication. 

A key domestic object was the wooden bar headrest which offered air circulation and protection for hairdos on tropical nights for sleepers reclining on woven mats. Other works in this section include elaborate multi-chambered pottery vessels that often took the shape of natural forms including turtles or citrus fruits. They were rubbed with hot resin from dakua trees to achieve a glossy varnish.

Illustrating 19th-century Fiji are 22 remarkable historical photographs from LACMA’s recently acquired Blackburn Collection, European watercolors and paintings as well as studio portraits, landscapes, architecture, and other features of daily life.

Organized by Dr. Steven Hooper, director and professor of visual arts and one of the leading Fijian art authorities, as well as his team at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, England, the exhibition has been reformatted for the presentation at LACMA, and co-curated by Hooper and Nancy Thomas, senior deputy director, art administration and collections at LACMA, and includes major loans from U.S. Collections. 

Philanthropists Lynda Resnick and Stewart Resnick, brought these works from across the archipelago to the U.S. for this important exhibition.

Following the presentation at LACMA, the exhibition will be on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts from September 12, 2020 through January 3, 2021.