A day out to the Museum and Craft Market

Pricing the arts pieces is part of my project. It is a challenge for me because I have never done the similar thing before. Actually I have never done any practical work before, what I can do is just the analytical work, tell stories based on the statistics collected from the Statistics Bureau.

My craft market research journey starts from the Fiji Museum. Tulia, whose the financial manager of the Arts Council has already contact the museum person before we were going there, because I need to ask some questions relate to the inside trading strategy. The museum shop is running by an Indian guy at the moment. He is so nice that answered every question I asked. The arts in the Museum Gift shops are with high quality and the price are relatively much higher than the craft market. I found out that a lot of Indo-Fijians are those with higher management skills, most of the shops in Suva are running by Indo-Fijian.


After visiting the gift shop in the Museum, we took a short tour in Museum and saw many beautiful arts works and some traditional things that the indigenous Fijian used back to the old ages.Masi is one of the traditional fiji arts and still be used today. Masi is the Fijian word for tapa or bark cloth and it is also the name of the paper mulberry tree.  Masi can be used as wall hanging and can be used as clothes for some formal traditional events. Women also use the painted Masi to design their own clothes.

                               Fiji traditional wedding wear, made from Masi and Magimagi

The next stop of my pricing research journey is the craft market.On the way to the craft market, the student from the conservatory told me that the life they lived after quitting Commonwealth is not as good as the life they live before. The currency devalued twice and I think Fiji will get less Western Countries support after quitting commonwealth. Those things reminded me of the financial condition in arts council.The government grand is 150000 each year towards to the arts council and there will be a value added tax which is 15% of the grand amount. Left over is only 127,500. Which is the only amount that the arts council will use to pay the salary to 6 people and the other expense to run the organisation  Which is far away from enough. The income for each person is quite low and there is only one person has an annual income exceed 15,000 and needs to pay the income tax. By looking at some statistics online, I found out that the GDP per capita in Fiji is only 4000 USD which is 10% of the GDP per capita in Australia.

The arts which sold in the craft market is different from those sold in the Museum. They have lower price and the customers are mainly Fijian. They make the Masi sell the Masi very quick and we can see many women making the Mat and doing the paint on the Masi just at the market. The hand made arts are very impressive. You can find many Fiji style jewelries and some small things at a very low price. I think if I am not an actuarial student, I would like to be a craft arts buyer, I can learn a lot from the arts and that would be very fun.

                                          the lady is doing the painting on the Masi

                                                           Making Mats