OCEANS APART: Art and The Pacific

3x60’ for BBC4

2018

Producer

In this landmark series, art historian Dr James Fox traces the momentous impact of the West’s contact with the peoples and cultures of the Pacific.  It’s a story of exploration, encounter and exploitation which began with Captain Cook’s voyages 250 years ago and is etched into the artistic record in extraordinary Western and indigenous paintings, sculpture and carvings. In epic locations across Australia, Tahiti, Hawaii and New Zealand, James Fox builds a powerful and provocative argument that the encounter between the West and Pacific peoples disrupted and destroyed indigenous communities but opened the world’s eyes to their images and ideas, re-invigorating Western art and changing the global imagination forever. James Fox does not tell this story alone. Throughout the series indigenous people and artists from across the Pacific take the opportunity to reflect on the often painful legacy of encounter for their society and culture.

I developed and produced this series, and spent two months filming across the Pacific.

EP 1: James Fox tells the story of Australia's indigenous culture, the oldest continuous culture anywhere in the world, and the disaster of its contact with the West. He traces how Aboriginal peoples were almost destroyed by the impact of European colonization, but held on to their art to survive, to flourish and ultimately, to share their culture with the world.

EP 2: Continuing his exploration of the collision of the West and Pacific culture, James Fox explores how, ever since Captain Cook's voyages 250 years ago, the West has created a myth of Polynesia as paradise. He travels across the Pacific to uncover the sites and masterpieces of pre-contact Polynesian art.

EP 3: James Fox explores how New Zealand's indigenous Maori people resisted colonisation and marginalisation and maintained their distinctive culture, so much so that it is now an integral part of modern New Zealand.