David GILLISON
Life on Crater Mountain
20 July to 13 August 2011
This series of photographs was taken during the early years of an extended stay among the Gimi-speaking people of the Crater Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. In 1973 I arrived with my family in the village of Ubaigubi. I was there to explore reports from an Australian ethnographer who had indicated that the people of Crater, who had strong indigenous theatre traditions before European contact were in the more remote regions of Crater, still performing theatre during their initiation and marriage ceremonies. The ethnographer suggested that this was being done out of sight of several Christian mission groups who were actively proselytizing in the area. If we were to be allowed to see these events we would first have to gain the people’s acceptance by proving that we were not another competing missionary group.
To introduce myself, and gain people’s trust, I started out shooting a series of portraits and general village views using black and white film that I could develop in our village hut, and thus show people what I was doing with my cameras. In the beginning, I began by walking about the village looking for subjects, and before setting up a tripod and medium format camera, I would ask their permission to take some shots. And following this I returned to our thatch-roofed house where, when darkness arrived, I could more or less safely develop the film. The next day I would return with a roll of negatives and show people their likenesses. The approach worked and the word got out that I was not a missionary planning to expose their secrets and thus shame them. What followed was a happy period when I was invited to observe almost every village ceremony. Some of these images are in the exhibition.
The images were all shot on Hasselblad and Mamiya cameras, on Tri-X black and white film and processed using Kodak chemicals that were shipped up to me in the Highlands from Australia. Thirty years later I rediscovered the negatives, and instead of working in a darkroom I scanned the film using a high-end film scanner and for this show printed the work on an Epson 9880 printer using Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper.
David Gillison
July 2011
New York
David Gillison 2005 Exhibition
David Gillison 2007 Exhibition
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