Conference Report: Pacific Arts Symposium
By Pamela Zeplin
Leading the Hemlaut mask around the South Australian Museum building on the way to the Pacific Gallery. Hemlaut mask of the Sulka people, East New Britain, brought from Guma village, Wide Bay, ENBP. Danced by John Telko of Guma at the opening ceremony of the Pacific Arts Association Symposium. Collection South Australian Museum. Photograph Caroline Yacoe.
If official political and cultural rhetoric in Australia remains consistent, Australia's economic and cultural destiny is inscribed within the Asia-Pacific region. The 'thrust into Asia' is well under way, but that other side of the neighbourhood hyphen—the Pacific—has not been so enthusiastically embraced and promoted. This is despite the fact that what laps against Australia's eastern shoreline is a vast ocean of many countries that wraps itself around half the globe.
