Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford University

Papua New Guinea is a country on the island of New Guinea in the South West Pacific near Australia.
In 1994, 10 master carvers from Papua New Guinea came to Stanford University to build a sculpture garden of New Guinea art.

According to Stanford's website, "The project is not an attempt to recreate a traditional New Guinea environment but an opportunity to experiment with and reinterpret New Guinea aesthetic perspectives within the new context of a Western public art space."

The project was transpired when two Papua New Guinea artists made the request to a Staford graduate student, Jim Mason, who was doing anthropological fieldwork in their country. These artists had just finished working on a sculpture garden in Australia and wanted to organize other venues in other western countries.

The artists arrived at Stanford the summer of 1994.

They stayed there for 4 months to complete the carvings and sculptures.

They ranged in age from 27 to 73 and it was their first time to the United States.

They created many large relief carved poles, free-standing individual figures, garamut slit drums and more.

The trees used for these carvings were selected specifically by the artists and shipped from New Guinea to the United States to be carved here.

The artists worked with a New Guinea landscape architect and an American landscape architect to design a landscape that would express the New Guinea aesthetic values within a western landscape space.

The sculptures and carvings are all shaded in an oak and cedar grove.

While I was photographing the carvings, several students and professors were relaxing or enjoying lunch among the artwork and trees.
Looked like a nice place to relieve some of the stresses of campus life.
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