Indigenous Intermediary Geua in ‘Photographs Mainly of Port Moresby’, George Lawes, (1880s)
EMPIRE LINES24 Marras 2022

Indigenous Intermediary Geua in ‘Photographs Mainly of Port Moresby’, George Lawes, (1880s)

Deborah Lee-Talbot exposes the political agency of Indigenous women in British New Guinea, through a photograph of the Papuan Geua, taken in the 1880s.

In her European 'Mother Hubbard' dress, and necklace made of local shells, Geua's status as a powerful, 'Big Woman' of Papua New Guinea is without question. A politically motivated Indigenous intermediary, she collaborated with the British missionaries and explorers that visited Port Moresby during the late nineteenth century, when the island was known as British New Guinea in the British Empire. Geua' prominence is evidenced by her repeated presence throughout the London Missionary Society's (LMS) archives, photographed by the likes of George Lawes. Her images serve in part as mission propaganda for European audiences, revealing what it was like for religious missionaries in the tropical Pacific region. Yet rereading Geua’s photograph from her perspective challenges the idea of Papuans' evolution as Christians, exposing Geua’s own agency as an Indigenous woman, and her critical role in bridging two distinctive cultures - as well as the unique role colonial photographs play today.

PRESENTER: Deborah Lee-Talbot, doctoral candidate in Australian-Pacific and archival history at Deakin University, Australia.

ART: Indigenous Intermediary Geua in ‘Photographs Mainly of Port Moresby’, George Lawes, (1880s).

IMAGE: 'Geua'.

SOUNDS: Blue Dot Sessions.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.


Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936

Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(174)

Pasqyra e Lëndës (Sommarium), Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj (2025-Now) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Summit Photo 2026)

Pasqyra e Lëndës (Sommarium), Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj (2025-Now) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Summit Photo 2026)

In this special episode, contemporary artist Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss memory, displacement and the politics of image-making in Albania and the Western Balkans, throug...

27 Elo 40min

Tomorrow, again, Mona Benyamin (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Triangle-Astérides, Jaou Tunis 2026)

Tomorrow, again, Mona Benyamin (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Triangle-Astérides, Jaou Tunis 2026)

Curator and translator Line Ajan observes time, and humour as an aesthetic, political, and coping strategy in Palestinian collective experiences, reviewing the traumas of the Nakba and Israeli settler...

13 Elo 25min

ZED LOVE, Libita Sibungu (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange)

ZED LOVE, Libita Sibungu (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange)

In this special episode, contemporary artist Libita Sibungu joins EMPIRE LINES live, to explore the layers, energies, and geologies that connect people to place, and African diasporic, mixed and multi...

30 Heinä 58min

A Cutting: Songs of the Water, Kaajal Modi (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at the Eden Project, Cornwall, If Trees Could Talk 2026)

A Cutting: Songs of the Water, Kaajal Modi (2024) (EMPIRE LINES Live at the Eden Project, Cornwall, If Trees Could Talk 2026)

Find out more about Kaajal Modi’s collaborative work with audio, oral storytelling, and cultural preservation, through ⁠⁠Arts of Noticing⁠⁠, an independent symposium in Leeds, as part of If Trees Coul...

16 Heinä 3min

The Deployment of Art, Clare Carolin (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at King’s College London)

The Deployment of Art, Clare Carolin (2026) (EMPIRE LINES Live at King’s College London)

In this special episode, author and contemporary art historian Clare Carolin joins EMPIRE LINES live, to discuss the British government’s deployment of art as an instrument of war in the North of Irel...

2 Heinä 52min

Elevation (Chiltan), Suleman Aqeel Khilji (2025-2026) (EMPIRE LINES x White Cube Paris)

Elevation (Chiltan), Suleman Aqeel Khilji (2025-2026) (EMPIRE LINES x White Cube Paris)

Contemporary artist Suleman Aqeel Khilji recollects the landscapes of Balochistan, a mountainous region spanning present-stay Pakistan and Iran, and the influence of Urdu language and literatures on h...

18 Kesä 16min

The Venice Lagoon, a legal person, Giovanni Pellegrini (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Ocean Space, Venice Biennale 2026)

The Venice Lagoon, a legal person, Giovanni Pellegrini (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Ocean Space, Venice Biennale 2026)

Researcher, artist, and curator Pietro Consolandi traces the ‘wetland turn’ in art, ecology, and environmental justice, via Giovanni Pellegrini’s 2025 documentary film, The Venice Lagoon, a legal pers...

4 Kesä 21min

Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream, Superflux (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Klima Biennale Wien 2026)

Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream, Superflux (2025) (EMPIRE LINES x Klima Biennale Wien 2026)

Festival director Sithara Pathirana considers climate justice and public space in Europe, tracing the rights of the river Danube through Austria, Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, via the Kli...

7 Touko 17min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

i-dont-like-mondays
olipa-kerran-otsikko
hupiklubi
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
download
uutiscast
sita
poks
seitseman
antin-palautepalvelu
rss-murhan-anatomia
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
kaksi-aitia
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
kolme-kaannekohtaa
mamma-mia
ihme-ja-kumma
aikalisa
loukussa
rss-haudattu