Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ann 66/100 - Stefanus

Stefanus Akanmore is a refugee from the Asmat lands in south-east West Papua. He is one of 43 Papuans who sought asylum in Australia after beaching their traditional canoe on Cape York Peninsula on 17 January 2006. He now uses his skill in traditional Asmat carving to educate and promote a free West Papua. He carved and decorated this complete sculpture in one day, and then hung a price tag of $5,000 on it.

2 comments:

Julie said...

...*gulp*... I wonder how many things he sold?? It is hard to judge whether that is an acceptable price for creative endeavour because it does not take into account all the work he did leading up to this particular carving. Like a tennis player winning $1m for a tournament: you have to take into account the weeks of practice.

I like both of these but think the first is the better photograph mainly because of the shadow in the second one. This festival certainly gave you enough ornamentation to work with.

Ann said...

He was only making this one piece as an exhibition and education and political statement about the occupation of West Papua. I've got a shot of the finished work which I'll put up on CDP at some stage. The diversity at Womad was incredible, so many interesting subjects.