Michael Mel is a

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

n academic in

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

at the

University of Goroka University of Goroka is a university in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. It provides teaching in three schools (Education, Science & Technology, and Humanities) and in three institutes (Postgraduate Studies, Technical Vocational ...

, curator, philosopher, musician and playwright. Mel was born in 1959 in Wila near Vulcano Hagan in the Western Highlands.Hailans to Ailans
biography
De kracht van cultuur

Tony Gwyn-Jones (December 2006)

Early life

Michael Mel born in 1959,was from wila village,

Mount Hagen Mount Hagen ( tpi, Maun Hagen) is the third largest city in Papua New Guinea, with a population of 46,250. It is the capital of the Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea, Western Highlands Province and is located in the large fertile Wahgi Valley in ...

. His father had great memory remembering family history up to 5 generations. His parents never tasted rice and bread, and Michael revealed he grew up on kaukau (sweet potatoes). He went to school with

Sisters of Mercy The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute had about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They a ...

Career

As an artist Mel principally specialized in

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

and

body painting Body painting is a form of body art where artwork is painted directly onto the human skin. Unlike tattoos and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, lasting several hours or sometimes up to a few weeks (in the case of mehndi or "h ...

. Furthermore, he is known for his ''Chanted Tales'', traditional historic stories of local people that serve for passing social responsibility and morality. Mel exerted himself to it that people obtained access to them again, since they had fallen into oblivion since

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

had become the principal language in the country.

Awards

In 2006 Mel was honored with a

Prince Claus Award The Prince Claus Fund was established in 1996, named in honor of Prince Claus of the Netherlands. It receives an annual subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Fund has presented the international Prince Claus Awards annually si ...

for his key role in the cultural development of the communities of the highlands of Papua New Guinea.Prince Claus Fund
profile
/ref>Prince Claus Fund
award winners of 2006
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mel, Michael Papua New Guinean musicians 21st-century dramatists and playwrights 20th-century dramatists and playwrights 21st-century philosophers 20th-century philosophers Papua New Guinean curators Living people 1959 births People from the Western Highlands Province Papua New Guinean philosophers University of Goroka