Visitors arrived early and the till was ringing hot on the opening night of Maketi Ples 2012 earlier this week. The three week exhibition at the Global Art Gallery in Paddington, Sydney, celebrates the work of 13 Pacific Island based artists and artisans hosted by Pacific Islands Trade & Invest.
Building on last year’s successful inaugural Maketi Ples, the opening night was filled with an air of excitement but if on the night sales are anything to go this year will be just as popular and successful as the first.
Ruth Choulai (Creative Arts Manager) and Paula Bjelanovic (Events and Admin) gathered together artists and artisans from Pacific Island countries from throughout Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Contemporary Pacific visual artists equally complemented by artisans with ceramics from Papua New Guinea, hand carved jewellery and a stunning dress made of Kafa (Braided coconut fibre) from Tonga, along with beautiful hand crafted works from Fiji and Solomon Islands.
Up to 100 people – a mixture of collectors, buyers and supporters mingled with the artists on opening night. The Samoan siva and an energetic fire dancer sent pulses racing – and the fire alarms ringing!
However, it was the opening night sales and an increasing interest and support from the Australian marketplace that has an immediate economic impact for Pacific artists. Papua New Guinea Investment Promotions Authority Acting Marketing Manager, Julienne Leka-Maliaki said the exhibition has direct benefits with artists making sales on opening night. It was a great opportunity for artists to promote directly to buyers.Anticipation for the exhibition began earlier in the week from visitors popping into the rustic gallery as the art was gradually going up. The gallery, though signposted, is not easy to find, tucked quietly down a narrow sloping side street in the heart of Paddington, surrounded by terraced houses of Australia’s recent past. The two-storied gallery entrance is a shop front with a large roller door is a great setting amongst some of Sydney’s more affluent and arty population.
More images and updates on their way ..
The Leaders’ Vision
Leaders believe the Pacific region can, should and will be a region of peace, harmony, security and economic prosperity, so that all of its people can lead free and worthwhile lives.
We treasure the diversity of the Pacific and seek a future in which its cultures, traditions and religious beliefs are valued, honoured and developed.
We seek a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values and for its defence and promotion of human rights.
We seek partnerships with our neighbours and beyond to develop our knowledge, to improve our communications and to ensure a sustainable economic existence for all.
- Pacific Plan
Smatterings from Opening Night
As the rush to complete the final preparations for the opening of Maketi Ples 2012 started to bear down on the small PT&I team and visiting artists, the arrival of the caterers brought a sense of reality to the remaining time left before our first guests’ arrival.
The Maketi Ples catalogue is always the most challenging of the exhibition tasks event, despite early preparations on the compilation of the material which started in January of 2012. With the intention of constantly improving our presentation of Pacific Islands creative conversations, the catalogue continued to be our biggest challenge. We went to print for the opening night and challenged our sales staff to wing it – both Paula and Becky sailed through the night with flying colours – it has taken one week to be completely inclusive of all the creative work exhibited in Maketi Ples 2012.
The buying of art works was so fast and furious that we made an executive decision to delay the “Welcome to Maketi Ples” and the Spirits of the Islands performance for another twenty minutes. We started on the clock at 7pm.
“…the art speaks for itself…”
Ruth –
Tessa, Kay, Vola, John & Ruth
For me, one thing that stood out was greeting so people from last year’s Maketi Ples who were also pleasantly surprised that we remembered them and were even more pleased when we were able to address them by name. It was really good to see so many guests from last year purchasing on opening night.
Without doubt, the sales frenzy, not being able to have time to breathe or think, there was always someone waiting to speak to me and ready to ask for more information about the work (even though there was artist information in the catalogue).
“… all of our guests who spoke to me appreciated the fine quality of the work…”
Paula -