Fiji : Art & Life in the Pacific
- Submitting institution
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The University of East Anglia
- Unit of assessment
- 25 - Area Studies
- Output identifier
- 186018409
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Fiji Museum & University of East Anglia
- ISBN
- 978-0946009-70-1
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- The outcome of forty years of research on Fijian history and culture, this encyclopaedic book distils analysis of thousands of museum objects and primary archival materials. Serving as a fully illustrated/documented catalogue of the 276 artworks in the international exhibition of the same name, it also contains chapters detailing the indigenous roles and significance of Fijian art. It demonstrates how objects were crucial to exchange relations among Fijians, as well as between Fijians and European voyagers, missionaries and colonial administrators. A history of Fijian art, it highlights the dynamic adaptability of Fijian artists, men and women, since the eighteenth century.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The outcome of forty years of research on Fijian history and culture, this encyclopaedic book distils analysis of thousands of museum objects and primary archival materials encountered by Hooper during visits to almost 100 museums and archives in Europe, North America and the Pacific. Hooper was also the originator and lead curator of the international exhibition of the same name that was shown at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA (15 Oct 2016 – 12 Feb 2017) and at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (15 Dec 2019 – 2 May 2021). The exhibition and book were outcomes of an AHRC-funded research project Fijian Art (2011-2014), for which Hooper was PI.
While serving as a fully illustrated and documented catalogue of the 276 artworks in the exhibition, the book also contains chapters on Fijian history and on the indigenous roles and significance of Fijian art. Hooper was aware of the enormous wealth of Fijian cultural material that lay little-known and unresearched in institutions around the world, and his aim was to bring this material to academic and public attention. An additional aim was to encourage more sophisticated understandings of Fiji’s artistic heritage by applying anthropological approaches to the importance of exchange in indigenous Fijian practice and by providing an art-historical focus on the creative adaptability of Fijians during the nineteenth century, thereby undermining stereotypes.
No book of this kind previously existed, with the range and depth of information it contains about Fijian history, art and culture. Produced collaboratively with Fiji Museum and illustrating many of their fine pieces, 200 copies of the book were distributed to Fijian secondary schools and colleges by the UK High Commission in Fiji, while the Fiji High Commission in the UK and the Prime Minister’s office in Fiji have used it as diplomatic gifts.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
