Oceans Apart: Art and the Pacific with James Fox

In this first episode, Art historian Dr James Fox tells the story of Australia's indigenous culture, the oldest continuous culture anywhere in the world and the disaster of its contact with the West. He traces how Aboriginal peoples were almost destroyed by the devastating impact of European colonisation but held on to their art to survive, to flourish and, ultimately, to share their extraordinary culture with the world.

In this second episode James Fox travels across the Pacific to uncover the great sites and masterpieces of pre-contact Polynesian art, from the massive religious complex Taputapuatea on the island of Raiatea to the extraordinary feathered ‘Ku' heads from Hawaii, testament to the rich and sophisticated societies that lived there.

Concluding the series on the clash between the West and Pacific peoples and cultures, James Fox explores how New Zealand's indigenous Maori people resisted colonisation and marginalisation and maintained their distinctive culture, so much so that it is now an integral part of modern New Zealand.