The photographs of Peter and Georgina Bowater

If you pass the Grimaldi Forum between February 12 and March 20 2011 you will see in the piazza what looks like a set of advertising hoardings. A closer inspection reveals these to be a unique collection of photographs taken nearly 40 years ago in Papua New Guinea by the English couple Peter and Georgina Bowater and they reveal the lives, unchanged in over 4000 years, of the tribes of the mountainous, forested central part of New Guinea.

In 1970 Peter Bowater, then aged 26, arrived from Scotland with his wife Georgina, 25, as an advisor on the development of agriculture in the New Guinea Eastern Highlands on behalf of the Australian Government, who have administered the territory since the First World War. His contract was for 21 months but they stayed for three years and came to know and understand the local people very well. Even the arrival of their daughter Justine in 1971 did not interrupt their stay in the country, so fascinated did they become with its people and their culture.

Although neither Peter nor Georgina were professional photographers it was a hobby they both enjoyed. Their arrival in Papua New Guinea seemed an ideal opportunity to photograph exotic birds such as the Bird of Paradise, but they soon discovered that these creatures lived in inaccessible regions in tree tops, making photography a very difficult process. However, surrounding them was a unique human culture that had sustained itself virtually unchanged for over four millennia, and was an ideal subject for them to develop their photographic skills.

The result is a unique set of photographs, first in black-and-white and later in colour. Over the following three decades many of these pictures suffered from the elements and less than ideal storage conditions, and the copies now visible are the result of many hours of scanning and computer-based restoration. They represent a snapshot of a culture that at the time was already beginning to change and now is very different to the one the Bowaters came to know and love.

Peter and Georgina were in Monaco for the opening of their exhibition. Talking to them I soon discovered their deep pride in having had the opportunity to experience Papuan culture first-hand and a great love for the country and its people, mixed with apprehension as to how modern Western culture has changed that of the Papuans, not entirely for the good. In the early 1970s the people had little interest in the outside world; their lives were self-contained and had been for hundreds of generations. They found the antics of foreigners as comical as we sometimes find those of "primitive" peoples. Even a camera would have been a strange and rather useless artifact, since in those days of film they would have no opportunity to see the pictures taken. The few possessions these people had any interest in were mainly practical items such as axes. Their own stone axes required hours of effort to keep them sharp, and metal axes brought in by foreigners were highly prized.

The administration of Papua New Guinea by Australia, while benign, brought unforeseen changes. One of these was introduction of schools, which exposed young Papuans to cultures very different to their own. The Papuan culture required little formal education; as with most primitive societies there was heavy emphasis on the spoken tradition; tales of tribal wars would be passed down the generations. Unfortunately, this new education came without opportunity, which bred resentment among young people wanting to make use of their new skills. This process, though started earlier, was starting to take effect at the time Peter and Georgina were living in the country, and they now feel they were witness to the end of a "Golden Age". Traditional clothing in the warmer regions, for example, consisted of strategically-placed leaves, while up in the high mountainous areas bark would be beaten out over several days into thin sheets that made warm coats to deal with the cold. Nowadays the people wear shirts and shorts, just as they do anywhere else in the world.

Georgina recalls an amusing aspect of local life. Traditionally, society dealt with bad behaviour on a communal basis and in fact crime levels were always low. The Australians introduced local police forces, mostly composed of local people, but some of their tasks seem bizarre, such as to prevent people from owning or using playing cards. The reason for this was that it appeared to spur the development of cults based on money and ownership, which went against the traditional culture. The police would raid illicit card-playing dens and confiscate the cards. Not to be outdone, the people cut corn-flake packets (themselves an introduction from the outside world) into card-sized tokens and carried on.

When Peter and Georgina left Papua New Guinea and returned to England they found it impossible to return to their previous life, so greatly had they been affected by their experiences. The first question Peter asked on returning was "Where do we go next?". Since then they have continued as photographers in a wide variety of places; Georgina counts fourteen different addresses since they married. Their philosophy is not to worry about what will be, just "Go, then worry when you get there". They are currently building a low-energy family home from scratch in a village in the Drôme, near Die, while living nearby in temporary accommodation. Their enthusiasm for life is undiminished.

Exhibition details can be seen at the Grimaldi Forum website. To see more of their photographs, visit Peter and Georgina's website.

This article contributed by Graham Trott for The Riviera Woman.