I enjoyed many challenging discussions with Michael Mel over the course of ten days in Goroka, where he continually rearranged his comically busy schedule to help me prepare a shipment for Hailans to Ailans. Two things struck me about this extraordinary man. The first was that despite his tremendous commitments as a father, artist, university administrator, teacher, and key contributor to countless cultural initiatives, he gave careful attention to every single person who wanted to speak with him. The second was that he continually offered novel, witty, and poignant observations in the midst of this social barrage. He was the consummate performance artist.

- Dan Lepsoe, April 2009

DL: You often speak of the importance of relationships in defining who you are. What do you mean by that?

MM: I live in a world in which self-gratification is considered to be of supreme importance- but I’m challenged by the fact that I belong to a community. I belong as much to them as they do to me. This community includes my ancestors, who continue to support me even now. The people who have gone before me live in me, but they live in those around me, too, and it’s my responsibility to recognize and strengthen these connections. Building bridges is my homage to my ancestors.

DL: Through your work in Papua New Guinea, you’re obviously concerned with engaging young people, with interesting them in their cultures and where they came from. Why is that important?

MM: We live in a world where we are challenged all the time to forget ourselves and become others; it’s hard to see the world from our own context rather than always from someone else’s.

Many young Papua New Guineans are struggling with the same problems of identity I’ve struggled with. When I began my PhD, I realized that I’d missed a lot about my people: I’d forgotten my language, my art, my history, a lot of what was true about me: I’d become a white man, but black-skinned, if you like. I felt very angry, bitter, and inadequate, and I wanted to blame somebody. But whom do you blame? This was 1996, and the changes that had made me this way had begun here in the 30s. So I felt that I had to begin with myself. My art has been an exploration to find myself, to reconnect with my people.

Storytelling features in our tradition as a tool to connect past and present. My teaching is not about bringing young people back to the past: it’s about bringing the past to the present, about creating opportunities for young people to say, “This is ours.” There needs to be a process of engagement and dialogue. They need to be brought to the table.

DL: You’ve hinted that your performance for Hailans to Ailans might link cultural with environmental sustainability. What are some of the ideas you’ve been thinking about in this regard?

MM: Maybe we don’t own the land: maybe the land owns us. We’ve taken from the land, and the land is starting to take back. Papua New Guineans are affected by climate change. Identities are being lost as species mixtures are changing and sea levels rising. On the coast, burial grounds are being exposed, skeletons revealed. Land is memory; so much of us is in it: we cannot afford to sever that umbilical cord.

Cultures like mine can offer alternative ways of relating to land, rather than just taking from it. Reconnecting with our history helps us reconnect with the land. For example, traditional foods are more nutritious and are better for the environment and the community than imported foods. But we are losing knowledge about what those foods are and how to cultivate them. In my language, we have different words and uses for the many local species that people in town now call “banana”. People need to be made aware of the significance of changes like these.

DL: In your performances abroad, a favourite strategy seems to be to subvert ethnographic perceptions: for example, by bringing a museum artefact to life. How do you connect with foreign audiences in this way?

MM: My work is all about audience engagement, about creating a presence, a shared meaning. My experience has been that people have not been able to understand me and my people, so I bring audiences to where I am through art.

I try to engage with as many senses as possible. Performance tradition is never about objects- never about contemplation. In Western culture, there is a dichotomy between the world inside and the world outside. For us, there is a continuum: we are challenged all the time, and we challenge what’s outside us.

In my tradition, we make things, like masks and dances, to engage the community. Objects are reminders of our identity. There’s a blurring of boundaries between performance art and visual art- in bilum, for example. Use does not demean an object: true value connects with stories and experiences. Visual culture reminds us of what’s carried in our minds; performance art gives us occasions to share. Maybe objects can be the windows through which our cultures can see each other and communicate.