Off with their heads

Sometimes you gotta love Gmail, especially when it brings you little news snippets it thinks you might like, after snooping through your emails... tonight my friendly Gmail brought me this gem:

French ministry blocks return of mummified Maori head

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "oh puhleeze, can't we just return all those heads to wherever is/was their home and get this all over with?" - well, this article brings up an important point which may change things somewhat.

"The ministry argues that the human head is a work of art that belongs to France and its return could be an unfortunate precedent for a huge range of the national museum collections...
Rouen officials insist that the Maori head is a body part, not a work of art, and that according to France's bioethics law it must be returned to its place of origin. "This object reflects the barbaric trafficking in body parts, the belief that another race was inferior to ours," said Catherine Morin-Desailly, the deputy mayor for culture and a senator, who proposed the return of the head. "It belongs to the heritage of humanity, not in storage somewhere in a museum."

Which really does pose an ethical question to Museums and Art galleries - where do we draw the line between Art, no matter how contemporary (I'm thinking of that guy who sliced up a body thinly and preserved it with formaldehyde between glass) or ancient, and plain old body parts? Where do we place a value of a right to a respectful death, not having our remains put on show?

The director of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, a museum I recently visited, thinks that having these ancient relics put on show is the only way:
"From my point of view they are cultural artifacts that had a function in society... Sending back these artifacts to New Zealand, and destroying them by burying them is a way of erasing a full page of history."

Now this maybe so, but I wonder if there is any sort of code of conduct for conservators and curators to know how to handle such things? Do they still follow the customs and rituals of wherever that artifact is from in the way they treat them in death? Some of the heads have not even had a chance to be placed within Tribes, as Museums won't even release photos of them fo further study... and the Musee du Quai Branly is a Museum of indigenous artifacts, so of course this director would say this- if they had to return everything that have received in somewhat dubious ways, all they would have left is their building!

It makes me wonder what ethical considerations are put in place in a Museum context, and also just how many artifacts would be left in some of the larger Museums in the world if everything got returned to its rightful owners. I think there are quite a few fishy stories hidden about preserved heads, mummies and other "exotic finds" that we have never been told. Maybe the dusty old exhibits would be better for it if they were.

Paris - An Excessive City

Paris is already known as the City of Romance and the City of Light, but in light of my 9 days there, I really think it is more like The City of Excess.

For starters, who wouldn't come to like a city where the cheese section in the Supermarket is the same size as the wine section? Which of course led to excessive amounts of both being consumed... as well as crepes, Milka chocolate and decent espressos. Don't worry, I did eat some fruit and veges at some point. Our love of the wine section was one of economic necessity though, I hasten to add. For although Paris seems to ooze an aura of excessiveness, the prices of alcohol in all the pubs and bars don't really encourage hedonism, as 9 euro for a pint of beer is a bit much. Fortunately, for some reason or another I never actually had to buy a drink in the Iguana Bar, a bar in Bastille which had been made over to be the 42 Below bar in Paris. A combination of drunk and foolish New Zealanders buying me cocktails and a barman who was besotted with me(!) gave way to free 42 Below. Which, on the Wednesday, led to excessively bad behaviour on my part. Woops.

The bar of Excess - Iguana Bar, Bastille

For all this gluttony and overindulgence in the food and drink department, Paris also has an excessive amount of sights to see... although I admit I wasn't rushing around like a mad tourist, I still have yet to see everything I wanted to in Paris. I didn't make it in to the Louvre, I didn't go up the Arc Du Triomphe and I didn't get to any of the famous cemetaries there (Marcel Marceu will wait for me I'm sure) but what I did see was a lot of amazing views, and not just from the Eiffel Tower, but also from the Sacre Couer and the tops of various buildings we visited - hell, even our apartment had a view of the Tower. And everywhere is beautiful, even the shabby red light district had its charm. And no rubbish on the ground! London, take note!

Highlights of the trip? The Pompidou Centre, starting with the building itself and going all the way through with amazing contemporary art;

The Pompidou Centre - all the inside bits are outside the building! Amazing!

going up the Eiffel Tower;Doing my best to pose on the windswept 2nd platform of the Eiffel Tower

NZ Tourism's amazing giant Rugby Ball that they somehow got away with rigging up right on the Champs Du Mars for the world to see - inside was this amazing multimedia experience (with an excessive 6 cameras projecting all the way around the ball)

Manaia at le grand Rugby Ball - Go NZ go!

... and of course seeing the planning done with Manaia come to fruition with them performing outside the ball daily for 2 weeks. The free accommodation with them helped too...

The problem with Paris being so excessive, however, is that it has been one of those holidays that you have to recover from - catching up on sleep being the main. But it is all work and study until January from now, and my god I'm behind. So luckily I created some excessive memories.

Conflict of Interest - the human interest story

So I went to Paris for 9 days, the first part of this being with members of an aforementioned non profit organisation. I was already staying on in Paris to see my Aunt and Uncle, but had mentioned that I might set up a few meetings for the profit making venture I work for who were based there for a couple of weeks, but hadn't really planned anything much...

People stopped talking to me. People ranted at me how it was unfair I got a free ticket to Paris to then do work. I got told I was skating on thin Ice. No kidding.

And then I read the following:
It has been mentioned before about committee members and POTENTIAL Conflict of Interest. The Charity Commission does have a position on this which will affect who we vote into the new and all subsequent committee.

The Charity Commission says that a committee should not have 50% or more of its members with a POTENTIAL Conflict of Interest.

This means for this year that anyone voted in from now (into komiti 2008) cannot be in this position, or someone currently voted into committee must remove that Potential Conflict. As 4 members already do the next 2-3 members voted in must not have the Potential conflict in order to hold the 50+%.

We will work on the details of what constitutes a conflict of interest for Ngati Ranana and present this at the SGM.

So my question is, do I pull out of the committee, or do I stay simply to make a stand against what some think is a conflict of interest and I simply see at a maximum of 10 hours work a week?

If it leads to the amount of politics and dramas my first weekend in Paris had, I'm out.

Spiritual or sleep inducing?

A couple of weekends ago a friend and I went to see Requiem by Lemi Ponifasio's group MAU at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre, in a show presented by the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). Some of you may know that I had gone to Vienna to see another show of Lemi's, which was supposedly based on The Tempest, and starred Maori Activist Tame Iti - I hated it. It made me think quite a bit about representing New Zealand on stage, however, and the moral obligations Theatre practitioners in Foreign language speaking countries have - with the combined German and Maori language skills of the three of us who went we would pretty much bet our life savings that the subtitles certainly didn't meet what Iti was saying on stage. But I had heard good things about Requiem, I knew it had a bigger cast, and surely it would be better?

Photograph: Tristram Kenton

No, no it couldn't. So much so I left at the half way mark.

What I saw was replication of the same conventions used in the Vienna piece - hypnotic? Yes. But to the point of putting most of those in the audience on Sunday night to sleep. Only the odd handclap, or wahine toa (warrior woman) with patu woke the majority up, in the hopes that the slow build up might be actually building up! But it didn't, and those I spoke to felt heartily disappointed that the piece did not live up to what they thought it would be - a Pacific Island/Maori style Requiem, which is generally more of a celebration of life and memories (as far as I know...)

I found the performance a little too hypnotic, and while I believe in slowing down and educating an audience, not to the point of putting them to sleep. It felt like too much of an indulgence of a droning soundscape and well disciplined dancers for my liking. But each to their own.

Since then I have been thinking quite a bit about the piece since then, and what it all means. Not so much the show itself, but the surrounding ideas behind it: it used ritualistic symbols of the Pacific Island death rituals, yes. And it was very beautiful in some parts, but a sum of beautiful parts does not a brilliant show make, particularly when they are all painstakingly slow. It seems that that the Guardian reviewer agrees with me here.

And I also got to thinking about whether this is an apt piece for Creative New Zealand to give $50,000... if we are going to only send the select few pieces overseas to represent New Zealand culturally, then I find it interesting that such an abstract piece that only the select few would like was chosen. We are increasingly seeing cultural festivals in London used as a marketing tool for that particular country - the recent India Now Festival, or the upcoming Polish Arts Festival come to mind. If New Zealand is not going to go in for a Festival, then I think it is about time some cross-government departmental meetings go on to see how the Arts can be used to show New Zealand to it's best advantage. And I'm not sure Lemi and his crew would be the best option for the money.

But then that opens up a whole new can of worms doesn't it? If we are only going to send one or two Performance pieces to represent New Zealand overseas, what do we choose?

The first step to true Academia...

Today, I took my first tutorials in a UK University, and saw the face of UK studentdom...

Yep, that's right folks. In what my supervisor calls a "sort of trial" for lecturing, I am the face of PPD2- Personal and Professional Development Studies for 2nd Year students, the majority of them studying either Events or Tourism Management. It is quite a nice wee course actually, all about employability AKA how to make your CV look good and sound even better in interviews. The dud bit is being their 'personal tutor' AKA University mother. Let's hope I don't get any tears, I'm sure the University has some sort of policy on that sorted, everything else appears to have one! But the best thing about it is the pay - 41 quid an hour, practically no preparation. So bye bye Royal Albert Hall, you've been great fun but my dissertation is waving in despair underneath a sea of work rosters. It is funny how once you are resigned to leaving a place (well, actually I've gone casual but let's not start in to the politics of being a casual in the box office's current climate) you subconsciously start to shut down all your passion for the place... well maybe it is just this place. It certainly isn't like that with BATS.

Anyway, after being up close with some 2nd year students (mainly female) I have the following observations:
- They wear a lot of make up
- They have no hobbies, other than drinking. Drinks of choice are mainly white wine and vodka
- They are fashion victims (think leggings, skinny jeans, tunics and long necklaces)
- They don't pronounce their consonants enough

But at least they appear to have some form of intelligence in their skulls. Three cheers for not having first years!

So yes. I will keep you posted with their (and my) progress. And if it goes well, fingers crossed I might more 'visiting lecturer' work. As long as it pays well and keeps me entertained I'm happy.

I am trying hard now, I promise

And yes, I will try to update this more. Just keep prodding me and I will remember all my thoughts for once rather than just ingesting them like a good red wine... great at the time but just a nasty taste in your mouth in the morning.

Conflicts of Interest? Doubt it.

Last night I was nominated on to the committee of a voluntary 'arts' organisation - surely a sign that I am assimilating in to London Society, albeit a society largely made up of New Zealanders, but I digress...

In the process of me becoming the treasurer of said organisation, I had to leave the room as the rest of the group discussed me. Of course, I eavesdropped for a while to make sure the guy who nominated me made me sound good, which he did (thumbs up to that man!) but then I heard the dreaded words of I'm sure any executive or politician. CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

You see, this voluntary organisation has close links with a business that, to those uninitiated, looks to be largely the same as this voluntary organisation. Who I happen to work for. And so, for the next 20 minutes, the group discussed basically whether this is a huge issue.

Now, let me make this clear. I may be a joker, and I certainly like my drinking and good times, but I am also a professional. And so someone telling me that my job is going to be an issue for a voluntary position is an insult. Yes, I see the conflict of interest of the Mayor of Wellington's husband being a property developer. And yes, I can see why those who didn't listen to my explanation of my role in the business may have seen a problem, but pahleeeze.

If I care enough about a voluntary group to dedicate what I know will be many hours of brain drumming number crunching, coupled with blood sweat and tears, why would I not keep this seperate from my normal everyday work?

Okay okay I am sure other people do take a few things in their stride there, but hey. I'm a pro. Or at least in serious training to be one. And I thought that if anything, this would be an asset, not a hindrance.