Kastom - Art of Vanuatu - Grand Format

Kastom : Arts of Vanuatu is an extraordinary selection of works from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Central in many traditional indigenous practices, known in Vanuatu as 'Kastorn', are masked performances and displays of sculpture including iconic upright slit drums and even after a century of dual colonial and Christian religious influences respect for kastom in all of its forms remains strong.
This catalogue highlights an impressive array of these intensely visual traditional arts created for ritual events. Art realised in wood, over-modelling, feathers, pig tusks, stone and other mediums such as tree fern are discussed and it is surprising to learn these arts are remarkably unchanged to those from over a century ago as kastom is an inseparable part of ni-Vanuatu culture. This publication outlines the National Gallery of Australia's commitment to building a Pacific Arts collection through a program of field collecting activities during the early 1970s.
Over fifty works reflect the many stages of ritual life in Vanuatu 'hem art connected to initiation events to art which celebrate the ascension of life beyond the physical being and into the world of the ancestors.