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When someone uses the term 'collaboration' to describe an artwork, they usually mean to suggest that it has been produced through a process of even-handed, collective authorship. The etymology of the term, and its association with the French figure of a traitorous collaborateur, should perhaps alert us to the fact that joint creative enterprises are not always so well balanced. Despite the best intentions, collaborations are often fraught with unequal power relationships and contradictory ambitions. This is particularly true of cross-cultural projects, where participants tend to hold world views that have grown out of significantly different political and economic realities.

Collaborations between Pacific Islanders and artists who base their practices in the 'contemporary art' worlds of Australia and New Zealand have become increasingly common. Two recent projects, both included in the 6th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6) , illustrate how varied these exchanges can be. The first of these is Teitei vou (a new garden) , 2009; an installation of textile works jointly created by Bale Jione, Leba Toki and Robin White. This collaboration is a testimony to harmony. White is a very accomplished New Zealand artist whose career dates back to the egalitarian milieu of 1970s art. She has lived in remote Pacific communities for extended periods of time and developed a practice that is particularly responsive to collaborative relationships. Bale Jione and Leba Toki are Fijian barkcloth artists who met White through their shared Baha'i faith and have worked closely with her on both the conceptual and technical aspects of this project ...

Of South African–Mauritian heritage, the Australian artist Newell Harry has developed a different kind of collective project with his Pacific Islander friends in Vanuatu. Beginning in September 2004, Harry organised a series of print workshops with a group of young artists in a satellite village of the nation's capital of Port Vila, who have come to be known as the Mataso Printers. 'The Bebellic Print Portfolio' produced from these workshops was exhibited to much acclaim in 'News from Islands', a Pacific group show curated by Aaron Seeto at Sydney's Campbelltown Arts Centre in 2007, and was subsequently purchased by the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.

Harry's print project continues a tradition of ni-Vanuatu collaboration that can be traced back through a series of foreign-initiated workshops beginning in the early 1960s. A long list of French expatriates, foreign volunteers and other visitors have helped introduce art-making skills to Indigenous communities and facilitate various contemporary art projects. Most of these initiatives have been geared toward empowering local artists with skills that can be sustained without the need for ongoing input from outsiders. To cite one example, the New Zealand artist Michel Tuffery conducted a print workshop in Vanuatu during 2003 that involved producing paper stock from locally grown banana leaves.

Harry's involvement with the Mataso Printers is a bit different in this respect because the folio of prints has been produced in conjunction with Australian-based printers and conceptualised as a transnational partnership. Another notable distinction is Harry's direct engagement with a group of younger, displaced artists, with ages ranging from sixteen to twenty-five ...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Summer 2009 issue.