Papua New Guinea's First Films:
Connecting Moving Images from 1904 to Descendant Communities Today
Nambawan Piksa
Koiari dance – July 1904. British Museum
© The Trustees of the British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/EA_Oc-B120-115
These photos are from the British Museum and can be shared for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
About
Koita dance – July 1904. British Museum
© The Trustees of the British Museum
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/EA_Oc-B120-114
Nambawan Piksa Bilong Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea's First Films: Connecting Moving Images from 1904 to Descendant Communities Today is a new project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. Hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE), the three-year project will begin on 1 September 2025.
This cultural heritage project is led by Prof. Michael W. Scott of LSE’s Department of Anthropology, with Dr Naomi Faik-Simet of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS) serving as International Co-Lead. Research associate Dr Vicky Barnecutt will conduct historical and collections-based research at LSE, while Prof. Don Niles, also a research associate, will support reconnection efforts through IPNGS. The British Film Institute (BFI), Papua New Guinea’s National Film Institute (NFI), and the British Museum are project partners, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge will also provide technical and institutional support.
Nambawan Piksa focuses on 12 reels of silent black-and-white film made in 1904. The footage depicts 20 dances performed by groups from six language areas in Port Moresby, then part of the protectorate of British New Guinea. The dances were filmed by members of the Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to British New Guinea, which was led and financed by the American businessman Major William Cooke Daniels and organised by LSE anthropologist Dr Charles G. Seligmann.
Film reels
The BFI will digitise these films and return them to Papua New Guinea, where they will be archived at the NFI and IPNGS. IPNGS will undertake reconnection work with descendant communities to explore the historical and ongoing significance of the dances, and the NFI will oversee the production of a documentary on this reconnection work. LSE’s Film and Audio Unit will produce two short documentaries exploring the expedition’s history and the associated archival and artefact collections in the UK. This website will showcase the films, historical and related collections work, selected material from the reconnection work, and the documentaries, as they become available.
Nambawan Piksa will examine the colonial origins and rich cultural history of the films. Through research, community engagement, documentaries, publications, and a dedicated website, the project will promote historical and cultural knowledge locally and globally. This work will benefit Papua New Guinea communities and institutions, and engage academic and public audiences around the world. More generally, the project aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to decolonise archival practice and collections and the discipline of anthropology.
Website under construction - please contact the team at nambawanpiksa@gmail.com with any queries.
