Spurlock Museum

Spurlock Museum What's Yours is Mine: Contemporary Art, Appropriation, and Traditional Copyright

Dr. Jacquelyn Lewis-Harris is the Director of the Center for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity at the University of Missouri—St. Louis and presently holds the title of Assistant Professor in both Anthropology and the College of Education. ... She lived and worked extensively in the Pacific for 27 years with an emphasis on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands diaspora. She currently consults for several national and international museums as an independent curator. Her talk addresses the difficulties that arise when contemporary Papua New Guinean artists appropriate traditional Papua New Guinean art designs and forms from a non-related cultural group. In a global era when images circulate world-wide on the web or in commercial products, this issue of local copyrights is critical for everyone.