Vanuatu: when a line connects movement and storytelling

UNESCO’s multimedia archive entry for a Vanuatu Culture Centre documentary describes drawings made directly on the ground with a finger. A continuous line follows an imagined grid to create a composition. The practice is documented in Vanuatu’s central and northern islands in the Pacific Ocean: this is not an undifferentiated description of every person or tradition in the country. [1]

Research by Eric Vandendriessche and Alban Da Silva follows specific cases in northern Ambrym. The authors examine drawing procedures alongside words, contexts and the transmission of knowledge. This perspective matters: stopping at the finished figure would leave out part of what is being done and told. The drawing should not automatically be reduced to a simple geometric pastime for outsiders to copy. [2]

An academic comparison released as a preprint in 2024 considers properties including continuity, symmetry and paths that return to their starting point. A preprint is research made available before any eventual peer-reviewed publication; we do not present it as a definitive conclusion here. Comparing structures can help frame questions without making the practices, their names or their communities’ meanings interchangeable. [3]

An example invented by our editors: trace a completely original continuous curve on paper. Ask one person to look only at the result and another to watch the movement producing it too. What different questions might they ask? This small exercise explores the difference between object and process. We do not call it a traditional Vanuatu drawing or assign it an invented local story, ritual or meaning. [2][1]

A second editorial example: imagine an object record without a maker, place or explanation. We can describe what is visible, but essential questions remain: who made it? In what situation? Who was it shown to? Write these questions before looking for answers. If no reliable account is available, leave a question open. Our exercise proposes a way of reading information, not an interview that actually took place with a community. [2]

The image accompanying this page also keeps an explicit boundary. It is an illustrative scene with an abstract pattern devised to show a gesture, not a reproduction of a design claimed to be authentic or sacred. For a final editorial activity, try writing a caption that states what we know and what we are not showing. We can appreciate a carefully traced line without pretending that looking at it gives us all the knowledge a practice may transmit. [1][2]