Wycliffe Australia member, Peter Brook, has been working
in Papua New Guinea since 1996, primarily as a vernacular
literacy trainer and consultant, but since 2011 as an Arts
Worker.
Papua New Guinea’s rich tradition of visual arts – carving,
costume, painting, weaving – is one of the country’s
most distinctive features.
Like spoken languages, visual arts are also a form of communication.
Churches and missions have more to learn
about using local visual literacy skills in discipleship and
evangelism.
Since assuming his new role, Peter has lived and worked
with several communities and artists in the Sepik region.
Using photography and video, Peter documents local artistic
expressions, seeking to better understand world views, cultures
and cultural art forms.
In November 2010, Peter met Nanias, an artist working on
the north west coast on Papua New Guinea. Over the next 2
years he grew to know Nanias well and discovered that
Nanias is a ‘custodian’ of the Kwoma visual language.
Together, Nanias and Peter embarked on documenting the
complex visual ‘languages’ of bark painting, carving and
dance of the Kwoma people.
About halfway through 2011, Peter set Nanias the challenge
of painting stories from the Bible using traditional designs
and images of his clan. The result was a beautiful set of
paintings of the Genesis creation account and the beginning
of a series on the Life of Christ. Nanias was transformed as
he read the scriptures to accurately translate these stories
into the Kwoma visual language.
In April and October 2012, Peter went out with Nanias to his
village to document their arts and culture. When the villagers
saw the new “Biblical” paintings their enthusiastic response
was, “These are ours!”
The paintings in their local visual language spoke straight to
their hearts, the stories of the Bible were no longer foreign!
This is an excerpt of Steve and Glenda Kvale’s current newsletter. To read there newsletter click here.
