In this text, curator Fanny Wonu Veys examines multiple 'tellings' of a Pacific Islands model canoe to trace how its value was produced within a colonial, capitalist context. Using and questioning Western ethnographic practices, she explores the colonial geographical categorisations, ideas of purity and 'tainted objects', aesthetic appreciation from Western artists, and what emerges when the object is viewed beyond a Western lens, considering Indigenous significance. What does a 'counterethnographic' reading of this object offer?
Wonu Veys works as the Curator Oceania at the Wereldmuseum and as professor by special appointment ‘Arts and Material Culture of Oceania’ at Leiden University. Veys has curated the Mana Maori exhibition (2010–2011), Things that Matter (2017-), Australian Art (2019-), What a Genderful World (2019-2020; 2021-2022), A Sea of Islands (2020-2021) and Treasures from the depot: Easter Island (2022-).