Masked Histories

Turtle Shell Masks and Torres Strait Islander People

Leah Lui-Chivizhe
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Masked Histories

Turtle Shell Masks and Torres Strait Islander People

Leah Lui-Chivizhe
A celebration of the extraordinary turtle shell masks of the Torres Strait.
Masked Histories celebrates the remarkable Torres Strait Islander turtle shell masks that were taken or traded by Europeans throughout the nineteenth century. Displayed as curiosities or art in museums and galleries around the world, the Islander knowledges they held were silenced. Delving into old stories from both Islanders and the foreigners who had travelled to the region, Lui-Chivizhe reanimates the masks with their Islander meaning and purpose and, in so doing, powerfully recreates the past. Masked Histories advances a vivid new history, uncovering the profound importance of the turtle shell masks to all Islanders and revealing much about the people who created them.
Masked Histories celebrates the remarkable Torres Strait Islander turtle shell masks that were taken or traded by Europeans throughout the nineteenth century. Displayed as curiosities or art in museums and galleries around the world, the Islander knowledges they held were silenced. Delving into old stories from both Islanders and the foreigners who had travelled to the region, Lui-Chivizhe reanimates the masks with their Islander meaning and purpose and, in so doing, powerfully recreates the past. Masked Histories advances a vivid new history, uncovering the profound importance of the turtle shell masks to all Islanders and revealing much about the people who created them.

Masked Histories does not toy with a kind of decolonising representation in which a return to a pre-colonial past is possible. Nor does it imagine that period as a moment of authenticity prior to colonising influences. Rather it sits seriously with the life of these masks when they were in the Islands and since their removal. It imagines a future in which Islander representations can shadow imperial networks.”
Australian Book Review

This is an interesting book that, because of its novelty and its intrinsic interest, most readers will find very satisfactory indeed. A fresh, vigorous book.”
QRC

Masked Histories is a wonderful journey into the heart of the Torres Strait islands. Leah Lui-Chivizhe places turtle-shell masks at the centre of her cultural history as she peels away layers of a colonial past and present to reveal a humanity that pulsates with both life and sadness. A ground-breaking history.”
JULIA HORNE, Historian, University of Sydney

A masterful telling of the power and stories of the unique turtle shell masks made by Torres Strait Islanders.”
GAYE SCULTHORPE, Curator, British Museum

Leah Lui-Chivizhe

Leah Lui-Chivizhe

Historian and curator Leah Lui-Chivizhe is a Torres Strait Islander with enduring family connections to the eastern and western Torres Strait. Her research focuses on how nineteenth-century collections from the region can be useful for reconnecting Islanders with our pre-colonial histories of human and other-than-human relations. Leah teaches in indigenous histories at University of Technology, Sydney.

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