Goroka Town, Eastern Highlands, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia
Accession Date:
17 May 2017
Collection Date:
6 Mar 2010
Notes:
Small tote bag, made from piece of nylon fabric, cut from larger piece of laundry detergent packaging. Machine stitched, simple flat square shape with single strap/handle. Mostly green on one side, white on the other. White handle and multi-colored text (e.g. "antibacterial formula", production 2008", "dirts are not attached back", etc.)
Donor notes: [Purchased for] 1 kina... The bag was made for sale at the Goroka market to carry produce. The bag is made out of recycled industrial packaging bags, which are bought for one kina at a trade store, divided into smaller pieces and then made into smaller bags with a sewing machine. Pauline Michael (age 26, Inugal Clan migrant form Gembogn Village, Chimbu Province) made and sold this bag at Goroka Market. She lives at University grounds in Goroka. She makes these bags to support herself and her family. These bags are part of larger culture of reuse in PNG, and are indicative of ways that urban migrants work to earn a living. A finished bag costs one kina. This nylon bag is sewn together with black and lilac colored cotton thread. The handle is from a different industrial bag (same as handle of T 1.1), the handle is white with green bands that have white irregular elliptical shapes, black writing on handle says "PRODUCTION: 2008" and later "EXPIRY: 2012;" in green area handle has brown letters "OL" handle is sewn into bag at the top, stitching in colors clearly used on the same machine in tandem and is consistent from handle to bag. The bag is folded piece of nylon from larger laundry detergent industrial bag. One side is almost completely white with black writing saying "TOP CLEA[N]" this writing also appears to have a misprint between the words, below that black letters say "SIZE: " followed by handwritten "45" in permanent marker, this line also has a misprint, something indistinguishable is also written on the bottom, the bottom fold of this side is green with yellow writing which has been folded over from the other side. The other side of the bag is largely green with different colored writing in stripes that get shorter from top to bottom (top to bottom): Dark Blue stripe with white writing "Dirts Are Not Attached Back"; Royal blue with red writing "Washes With Best Result"; Red with multicolored white, dark green, light blue, light green, yellow, royal blue "Brighter Colours"; Yellow with dark blue writing "Kills Germs". Below the stripes of writing are two light blue soap bubbles outlined in royal blue, below that is the end of a word, the only letter of which we can see is a large "P" which is red with dark blue border. After the P, is a royal blue, dark blue, red and white slanted whirlpool design with white letters bordered in dark blue on top of it which say "ANTIBACTERIAL FORMULA". Below that in dark blue and white over green are two overlapping "®" signs. Behind all of the objects on this side is a white shadow. A white vertical stripe on the right is carried over from the white of the other side.