Mnemonic Inscriptions: Understanding Melanesian Tattoos in Visual Archives

该项目将研究巴布亚新几内亚女性纹身的两个摄影档案，分别由殖民官员(弗朗西斯·R·巴顿船长)在1899年至1908年和传教士(泽维尔·韦尔热·S神父)在1964年至1986年之间制作。这两个可视档案都是唯一的可视档案，在理解这一做法方面发挥了核心作用，这一做法在20世纪80年代被压制，今天正逐渐被从业者唤醒。这项研究的目的是通过分析它们代表过去的方式，激活、重新解释并与社区分享这两个未被研究的档案，并恢复土著机构。通过使用比较方法、照片启发和激活社会记忆，分析将包括土著当代声音，作为促进当前关于殖民档案的辩论的一种方式。

This project will study two photographic archives of female tattooing in Papua New Guinea made respectively by a colonial officer (Captain Francis R. Barton) between 1899 and 1908 and by a missionary (Father Xavier Vergés) between 1964-1986. Both visual archives are the only ones of their kind and occupy a central role in understanding a practice that was suppressed in the 1980s and is gradually being reawakened by practitioners today. The aim of this research is to activate, reinterpret and share with communities these two understudied archives by analysing the way they represent the past and to recover Indigenous agencies. By employing a comparative method, photo-elicitation and the activation of social memory, the analysis will include Indigenous contemporary voices as a way to contribute to current debates on colonial archives.