A Life’s Work Inspired by Art

Bishop Alphonse Sowada never imagined a life in remote Papua. But he gave up the comforts of his U.S. home to travel to the area in the early 1960s, becoming a renowned supporter of its traditional arts. Trisha Sertori meets the man in his second home.

Alphonse Sowada was happily minding his own business back in Minnesota when members of the Dutch Sacred Heart mission dropped in to his Crozier mission seeking help for Papuans in 1956.

“They (the Sacred Hearts) had missioned in Papua for a long time. They came to the States and showed us some slides of the Asmat area and its people. It was all swamp; not attractive at all,” says Sowada of his first impressions of an area that was to be his unplanned home for more than 40 years until his recent retirement.

The Croziers sent missionaries to Papua between 1958 and 1960; he was not among them.

“I wasn’t going. The then bishop sent for me twice asking me to consider going because we needed young people there. I said no way both times. In my mind there were no golf courses, no musicals, no entertainment. I didn’t want to give all that up,” says Sowada, who was then in his final year of theology.

But the bishop’s pleas were heard in some part of his consciousness.

“The third time he called me in – as I knew he would – I agreed to go on one condition. That was that I could major in anthropology first. I said to the bishop ‘You are sending me to a place where I know nothing of the people or their culture. I need to be prepared.’ So I did my master’s in anthropology. That’s how I got there in 1961,” says Sowada of what was to become a life’s work protecting and reviving traditional arts in Papua.

Sowada, who returned to Papua for the recent Asmat Festival, points out that when he arrived in Asmat country he realized that former missionaries had not recognized the value of the arts and culture of the local people.

“They were thinking more about getting them baptized and helping them compete in the modern world.” However, he adds there was respect shown for the arts with early Papuan churches using Asmat carving in altars and church decorations.

Creating an income source from the artworks and ensuring skills survival proved a challenge. Under the New Order government there was the view that traditional arts played a subversive role and were destroyed or banned from creation, according to Sowada.

“I believed if this art form and the skills belonging to it were destroyed the people would be destroyed; there was such a bind between the arts and their spiritual existence,” he says.

“If the carving tradition is lost, hope is lost. This was recently happening again with the Kamoro people; thank God (PT) Freeport stepped in and employed Kal Muller (to revive Kamoro arts).”

Sowada, with the help of several Indonesian officials, quietly kept Asmat carving skills alive until 1973, when he was given clearance to build a museum for Asmat arts in Agats, a museum that still plays a vital role in conserving and housing Asmat carvings.

A decade on and the first carving competition was held in 1983 – a competition that has  since evolved into the annual Asmat Festival and art auction.

“In 1978 I wanted to get the kids involved so I organized a carving competition through the schools. Pretty quickly I realized that the dads were doing the carving. So the focus was shifted to an adult carving competition.

“We were very careful starting because the government was still against it [traditional carvings]. In the first year we had 36 carvers competing. By the third year the competition was very successful and the government gave its agreement, but they wanted the statues’ ‘appendages’ cut off, saying they were pornographic,” chuckles Sowada.

“I said ‘are you saying the Lord made the human body pornographic?’ The official was stumped and the appendages remained.”

Today the festival attracts hundreds of buyers from around the world; their passion for the works evident in their willingness to take the long road to Agats.

The remote village of around 3,000 people is reached only by boat. A small plane leaves from Timika airport to land on a steel ribbon of airstrip cut into the jungle – the strip is built on the only piece of dry land in the area. From there it’s a 45-minute speed boat journey to Agats, a town propped on stilts over the swamp.

Getting the artworks out is another exercise in logistics. Sowada says in the old days the carvings were massive and almost impossible to ship. Since the first carving competition in 1983 the works have been scaled down, allowing for their sale and the development of a monetary economy for Asmat artists.

“Some people say the monetary economy from the arts is destroying the way of life. To that I say rubbish. In the old days carvers were employed to make ceremonial sculptures and paid in pigs, sago or other necessities. It’s only the form of payment that’s changed, not the payment itself,” Sowada says.

Thanks to Sowada’s dedication and hard work,  winning artworks from the annual Asmat Festival carving competitions continue to be collected by the Asmat art museum in Agats, ensuring the Asmat people are forever the keepers of their finest artistic creations.

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