Knowing and Not Knowing

Abstract

'Knowing and Not Knowing' is a chapter for the peer-reviewed 'Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums Vol. 2' (Carreau et al, Sidestone 2018) written at the culmination of a 5 year European Research Council funding project of the same name, led by Prof Nicholas Thomas of University of Cambridge (2013-2018). I was one of the team of researchers on the project based with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and these volumes were one of the project’s significant outcomes. One of the areas for research within the larger project for which I had overall responsibility was the investigation into West Papua and Papua, currently Indonesia. 'Knowing and not knowing' was an outcome of this investigation. The chapter describes the film I created, called ‘Knowing’ (2015), which investigates the entanglements of the region's colonial history.