Encounter the Other

Director of Grand Valley's Pew Faculty Teaching & Learning Center, Catherine Frerichs, has long been a proponent of inter-cultural learning. In that light, she shares a collection of photographs from the remote region of New Guinea, where she lived for 17 years as a daughter of missionaries.

Now on display in the Lake Ontario Hall Red Wall Gallery is Frerichs’ exhibit, “Missionaries Encounter the Other.” Her text enhances the display of photographs that her father took, primarily of the Kamano tribe. They are the native people of Raipinka, in the Central Highlands of New Guinea, in what is now Papua New Guinea. Frerichs’ family lived in the area from 1946-1951. Her father first worked as a missionary in New Guinea in 1937 and continued for nearly forty years.

“It’s a story about how my parents’ attitudes toward New Guineans changed over time, along with their attitudes about missionary work,” said Frerichs. “It also records a group of native people whose way of life has changed dramatically and illustrates how difficult it is to truly encounter an ‘other.’”

Frerichs will share additional insights at a reception on Thursday, February 19, from 4-5 p.m. at the Red Wall Gallery. The exhibit will run through March. To view a 25-minute film about the area, produced in 1951, visit www.catherinefrerichs.com

Photo: The current Red Wall Gallery exhibit depicts life among the Kamano tribe of New Guinea’s Central Highlands, where Albert Frerichs was assigned to as a missionary in 1940.