Tall Stories: Cannibal Forks (2010 & 2012)

Tall Stories : Cannibal Forks began with a group of colleagues from the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology coming to The Field to learn how to do green woodwork using traditional European tools and native European woods in order to carve their own cannibal fork.

The idea was to create self-consciously our own versions of the ‘cannibal forks’ in the Museum’s collection.

For me, this was the physical embodiment of the process that was happening anyway: it was clear that each person had constructed their own version of the truth of the ‘cannibal fork’ and that these truths were disparate, detailed and sometimes flamboyant and mutually conflicting.

The process of carving the cannibal forks was filmed by Marianne Holm Hansen and later edited with Alana Jelinek into the 8min film that comprises one part of Tall Stories : Cannibal Forks.

The other part of the artwork is the newly crafted cannibal forks. The Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology has now accessioned these as part of its collection and all other cannibal forks that were donated, having been made at the various Cannibal Forking events.

Tall Stories: Cannibal Forks (2010) was displayed originally as a site-specific intervention into the Fiji display at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Photo of Alana Jelinek’s, Tall Stories: Cannibal Forks (2010) with the original collection of ‘cannibal forks’ and Lisa Reihana’s, He Tautoko (2006) in 2012
Shown as part of Gifts & Discoveries, curated by Mark Elliott and Nicholas Thomas, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge.