[TimorLesteStudies] Southeast Asian Art exhibition - Canberra

[Australia-East Timor Association]

** Life, death & magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art **

- Showcasing the finest examples of animist art created to entice the living
and repel the demonic -

Where: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

When: open until 31 October 2010

Exhibition tickets:
Adult - $15
Concession - $10
Children free (16 years & under)


Background: 

The exhibition features over 250 works of art, including a small but
exquisite selection from East Timor. Among these objects are two pairs of
rare ancestor figures from Atauro Island, an elegant carved cotton mangle
and a world-renowned figurative shield on loan from the Barbier-Mueller
Museum in Geneva. 

Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art is the
first major exhibition of animist art from Southeast Asia to be held in
Australia. It showcases works of art from Indonesia, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, East Timor, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia and
southern China. For thousands of years, communities in these areas have
created remarkable art expressing the region¹s most ancient and enduring
spiritual beliefs and social organisation. The exhibition reveals ancestral
art in its many forms, including both everyday and ritual objects, from
dramatic sculptures and grand architectural pieces in wood and stone to
vibrant textiles and exquisite gold jewellery and celebrates the antiquity
and continuity of animism as the inspiration for exquisite objects in
bronze, stone, wood, gold and fibre.

For further information about the exhibition please see the National Gallery
of Australia website: www.nga.gov.au

---------------------------------------
Australia-East Timor Association (AETA)
PO Box 93
FITZROY VIC 3065
AUSTRALIA
T: 61 3 9416 2960
E: aetamel at aetamel.org