Twelve reels of silent film shot in Port Moresby in 1904—the earliest moving images ever recorded in Papua New Guinea—have sat in a London archive for over a century, never officially seen by the communities whose ancestors performed the dances they captured. The problem is straightforward: a significant piece of Papua New Guinea’s cultural heritage exists only in the UK, inaccessible to the people it belongs to. Colonial-era collecting practices separated the films from their living context, and no systematic effort has been made to reconnect them. This project will digitise the films, return copies to Papua New Guinea’s National Film Institute and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, and fund community reconnection activities. Researchers will work with descendant groups to document what the historical dances mean today and record contemporary cultural practices. Two documentaries and a public website will make the films and their history broadly accessible. If successful, the project will not only restore a missing piece of PNG’s visual heritage but also model a method for repatriating colonial-era media—turning archival objects into living cultural resources for schools, universities, and communities.
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Nambawan Piksa is a cultural heritage project that will connect film footage created in Papua New Guinea in 1904 with descendant communities today. The British Film Institute (BFI) in London holds 12 short reels of silent, black-and-white film featuring 20 dances recorded in Port Moresby in 1904 by members of the Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to British New Guinea, as the southern half of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was known then. The expedition was organised by British anthropologist Charles Seligmann (1873-1940) from the London School of Economics (LSE). These films are the earliest known moving images from PNG and have never been officially shared with communities there. The project will fund the digitisation of these films and related copyright research and will share these with Papua New Guinea's National Film Institute (NFI) and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS). IPNGS will facilitate reconnection activities with communities related to the 1904 performing groups to explore the significance of the historical dances today and record related contemporary cultural activities. NFI will archive the digitised films and produce a documentary on the reconnection work. A team from the LSE Film and Audio Unit will produce two documentaries on the history of the films in the UK, including the context of the Seligmann expedition and its related collections of archives, artefacts, and photographs held at the LSE, the British Museum (BM), and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The project website will showcase the films, historical and related collections work, selected material from the reconnection work, and the documentaries. Michael Scott of the LSE will be the Project Lead (PL). Naomi Faik-Simet, Assistant Director - Dance at IPNGS, will be the Project Co-Lead (International) (PCL (I)), supervising the reconnection work. Michelle Baru, Director of NFI, will be a Specialist team-member, responsible for archiving the digitised film and producing the PNG documentary. Vicky Barnecutt will undertake historical and related collections research as a research and innovation associate at the LSE. Don Niles will assist with reconnection activities as a research and innovation associate at IPNGS. The BFI, NFI, and BM will be Project Partners. The project addresses and remedies the fact that the earliest films recorded in PNG, a significant part of the country's cultural heritage, are in archives in the UK and have never been shared in PNG. The team will undertake comprehensive historical research and reconnection activities and will create and curate new content based on this research. This research will actively problematise the colonial history of the films and reconnect them with descendant communities today in a meaningful and dynamic way, with documentary films recording project activities. The rich cultural history documented in the films will benefit communities and institutions, including schools and universities, in PNG. On local and international levels, the project website will promote knowledge of the expedition, the dances, and their significance in PNG's colonial history and British social anthropology. Publications and conference presentations will disseminate information about the project's work to diverse academic audiences
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