Here’s part 6 of 6 (the final one yay!) of the doco Canvassing The Treaty – a thought provoking art and social experiment following six New Zealand artists as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
The Artists: Mike Davison, Samapeap Tarr, Sofia Minson, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Dagmar Dyck and Chris Bryant
The Treaty Educators: Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens
Ngapuhi Elder: Kingi Taurua
Here’s part 5 of 6 of the doco Canvassing The Treaty – a thought provoking art and social experiment following six New Zealand artists as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
The Artists: Mike Davison, Samapeap Tarr, Sofia Minson, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Dagmar Dyck and Chris Bryant
The Treaty Educators: Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens
Ngapuhi Elder: Kingi Taurua
I’d like to say a massive thank you for all your thought provoking responses to the previous post’s question “Is it alright to combine elements of Maori designs and create something new out of them?”
I’m in the middle of reading Tuamaka – The Challenge of Difference in Aotearoa New Zealand by social anthropologist Dame Joan Metge and she suggests…
“The problem of cultural appropriation is particularly acute for the creative artist. Sometimes there is a very fine line between legitimate borrowing and looting. Maori have themselves appropriated most of the things they have ‘borrowed’ from Western cultures and adapted them to their own ends.
The difference lies in the location of power. Members of the dominant Pakeha culture, with their greater access to power, need to be especially sensitive and observe certain guidelines. The two I suggest are to:
- Seek guidance and permission from the Maori custodians of the treasures that attract you
- Strive to be true to the original intention and spirit
Maori are shrewd at picking those who approach them with genuine respect and those who fake it… My own favourite strategy is to work with a Maori partner: I have found that we complement and inspire each other.”
So I have one more question for you all!
I ask this particularly on behalf of overseas designers and artists who want to incorporate Maori symbols into their work but don’t know how to contact kaumatua…
Kia ora friends,
I’ve been asked a culturally sensitive question by a Scandinavian man who at one point spent time living in New Zealand. I’d like to put it to you all because although the issue has been discussed in the public arena before, I’m not quite sure what the answer is or where to find it.
Artists and designers all over the world are using Maori symbols without knowledge of their meaning but have no way of finding out what is acceptable usage and what isn’t. Therefore I think it’s important to readdress this.
When you express yourself creatively, where is the line in visual arts between ignorantly/innocently appropriating cultural symbols and mindfully incorporating them?
How do you know if you’re being respectful? Do you have to know what each symbol means and where it comes from? Do you have to have Maori blood in order to use Maori designs in your work? Who has the authority to decide? Who can you ask about your specific case?
Our Scandinavian friend googled “maori symbols” but didn’t find any site with contact details to anyone who he could ask – he just got links to jewellery stores and tattoo studios.
Here’s part 4 of 6 of the doco Canvassing The Treaty – a thought provoking art and social experiment following six New Zealand artists as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
The Artists: Mike Davison, Samapeap Tarr, Sofia Minson, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Dagmar Dyck and Chris Bryant
The Treaty Educators: Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens
Ngapuhi Elder: Kingi Taurua
Here’s part 3 of 6 of the doco Canvassing The Treaty – a thought provoking art and social experiment following six New Zealand artists as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
The Artists: Mike Davison, Samapeap Tarr, Sofia Minson, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Dagmar Dyck and Chris Bryant
The Treaty Educators: Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens
Ngapuhi Elder: Kingi Taurua
Here’s part 2 of 6 of the doco Canvassing The Treaty – a thought provoking art and social experiment following six New Zealand artists as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
The Artists: Mike Davison, Samapeap Tarr, Sofia Minson, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Dagmar Dyck and Chris Bryant
The Treaty Educators: Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens
Ngapuhi Elder: Kingi Taurua
The thought provoking art and social experiment follows six New Zealand artists, three Maori and three non-Maori, as they gain deeper insights into the Treaty of Waitangi and create cross-cultural collaborative artworks.
We meet the artists and learn about their diverse Maori, European and Asian heritage:
The artists attend a treaty education workshop at Pakiri, north of Auckland, guided by Moana Jackson and Ingrid Hughens.
There are tears and feelings of hurt and guilt over historical injustices, as well as an eagerness to be educated and work together.
Ngapuhi kaumatua Kingi Taurua begins by saying “the treaty needs to be talked about again.”
Emerson, you speak the truth. However until you don’t have hands or you can’t use them, you tend to not recognise them for the godsends that they are.
Last weekend my fiancée and I did our advanced diver’s course in the Poor Knights. It was rewarding and amazingly challenging because of these beloved things called drysuits. The suit keeps you warm but my gosh if the rubber wrist seals are too tight, as mine were, you suffer from bruised wrists and inflamed, red, numb hands that just flop around on the ends of your arms being unhelpful.
It gave me a new sense of empathy for my mum who suffers from arthritis of the hands and has trouble opening lids of jars and carrying heavy objects.
The experience also reminded me of a painting that has been on-the-go for many moons now. This painting began its life as a kind of artist self-portrait. The painting is of my hands, the tools of my trade, and it contains all the crevices, blotches and shapes that are unique to me. If you can read palms these hands will even tell you my story. After this weekend’s dive I have renewed enthusiasm to complete this piece!
I’d like to share my story with you about a life-changing art collaboration that was captured on film and became a feature documentary on Maori TV and at the FIFO international film festival this year.
I was among six New Zealand artists, three Maori and three non-Maori, who were treated to an intensive workshop on the Treaty of Waitangi. As it happens, I desperately needed this because of a lack of quality treaty education at school. We then paired up to create cross-cultural collaborative artworks during one jam-packed, sleep-deprived, amazing weekend at Te Tii Marae in Northland, New Zealand.
I collaborated with Samapeap Tarr, a Cambodian / New Zealand graffiti artist who is a master with a brush and blank ink.
The two of us painted a huge 2 x 2metre work together called Te Pou Tuatahi, which combines our styles and yet is totally different to anything either of us have done before.
Check out the creative magic that happens in this 15 minute cut down version of the documentary Canvassing The Treaty that focusses on the collaboration between Samapeap and I.
Through the project I gained self-knowledge, friendship, an in-depth perspective on the treaty and experienced my first and best art collaboration.
Any questions about the experience or the artwork? Let me know.
STAY TUNED FOR THE ONLY ONLINE RELEASE OF THE FULL-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY OVER SIX VIDEOS ON BLOG.NEWZEALANDARTWORK.COM
