Maori Women Artists feature at Hastings City Art Gallery 27 Jan 2016
Related articles
Maori Women Artists feature at Hastings City Art Gallery
Local playwright Puti Lancaster has spent much of her summer working on a new performance piece based on stories and histories of the women of Heretaunga. River Seeds will be performed at Hastings City Art Gallery on February 6 and 7.
The live theatre will complement two powerful new exhibitions being installed at the gallery to commemorate the 176th signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Emily Karaka’s work Settlement and a group exhibition entitled Waitangi Wahine consider tino rangatiratanga and what it means post-treaty.
Lancaster’s performance piece explores what sovereignty has meant to women from past and present generations from Heretaunga. She has interviewed three generations of women and interpreted their experiences and encounters with the Treaty of Waitangi. “It has been interesting the way that women bring their individual voice forward; it is often very indirect and the challenge is to configure that in a way that audiences can relate to,” Lancaster says.
Multi-media exhibition Waitangi Wahine features five Mana Wahine artists, all with reputations for pushing boundaries: Robyn Kahukiwa, Linda Munn, Suzanne Tamaki, Tracey Tawhiao and Andrea Hopkins.
Waitangi Wahine curator Chriss Doherty-McGregor from Expressions Whirinaki Arts and Entertainment Centre (Upper Hutt) says the exhibition is very provocative and showcases some of the most reputable Maori woman artists in New Zealand. “Essentially this group of work is in response to the impact of the Treaty and its effect on Maori today. It makes you think about the treaty and what it means, and what it has meant for us a nation, both Maori and Pakeha. Together the artists featured here provide political statements on this debate, on the significance and status of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s founding document and the intention, spirit or principles of the Treaty.”
Painter Emily Karaka’s expressionist style is characterised by vibrant colour and heavily applied paint. She has focused on humanitarian and environmental issues, notably the Treaty of Waitangi. Passionate, expressive, gritty, challenging, simultaneously celebratory and confrontational - these are words that often describe her work.
In recent years Karaka's paintings have become less overt in her political message and more optimistic, reflecting the vitality of Maori contemporary society, which she describes as “our new dawn”. While the work still deals with issues such as loss of language, disempowerment and land loss, the outlook is more confident and the approach more considered, with a focus on reviving and maintaining matauranga Maori [Maori knowledge systems].
Waitangi Wahine and Settlement will open on January 30, and remain in the gallery until 3 April; River Seeds will be performed in the gallery, once on February 6 at 6.30pm, and twice on February 7, 2.30pm and 6.30pm. Tickets are ‘pay what you like at the end of the performance’, but as spaces are limited please book by phone on 871 5095, or email [email protected].
Events
Artist’s Floor Talk – Emily Karaka
11am, Saturday 6 February
Mana Wahine artists
Robyn Kahukiwa (Ngati Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngati Hau, Ngati Konohi, Whanau a Ruatapere) is based in Kapiti, and is New Zealand’s foremost Maori women artists. A staunch supporter of Maori rights and the power and prestige of Maori women, she has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for over four decades. She is recognised as an art icon and role model, a leading voice in contemporary Maori art and an international leader in indigenous art. Through her work Kahukiwa has established strong connections between art and politics and has done much to raise awareness of contemporary Maori art on the world stage. One of her works which features in the exhibition
Linda Munn (Nga Puhi, Ngai te Rangi, Te Atiawa, Ngai Tahu) has been involved in protest art since the 1980’s, when art became a media used to comment on current issues. In 1989 she collaborated with two other Whangarei mums in one of their kitchens to design the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, which has been acknowledged as a symbol of Maori sovereignty and used in protest marches and demonstrations throughout New Zealand. The flag features in much of the work in the exhibition.
Suzanne Tamaki’s (Maniapoto, Tuhoe, Te Arawa) large scale photographs also feature using provocative fashion photography to agitate discussions about colonisation, with wahine-toa (women of strength) featuring prominently. Tamaki was one of the founding members of the Pacific Sisters fashion collective in the mid 90’s participating in various multimedia fashion shows including the 12th Sydney Biennale and the South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Samoa, Palau and Pagopago. Her work is exhibited and collected extensively throughout New Zealand and the Pacific.
Tracey Tawhiao (Ngai te Rangi, Whakatohea, Tuwharetoa) is a writer, performance poet, filmmaker, qualified lawyer and leading Mvori artist based in Auckland. Her artworks are made from newspaper where Tawhiao uses Maori symbols and motifs to 'rewrite’ and recreate news stories from an alternative, Maori perspective. By obscuring certain words in a headline or passages of an article, and layering sheet of newspaper she changes the focus of each news item and changes the often negative editorial slant.
Andrea Hopkins is one of Northland’s leading contemporary painters. She is known nationally and internationally for her work which blends cultural semiotics with surreal landscapes. Of Maori, New Zealand and Welsh decent Hopkins is influenced by the Maori concepts of wairua/spiritual, hinengaro/emotional, whanau/family and tangata/the physical being. Her practice involves taking everyday identities and Maori motifs and places them against delicately brushed landscapes conveying messages of duality and strength.
Funding was received from the Manatu Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage Waitangi fund with touring support by Creative New Zealand.
Settlement: Emily Karaka
Emily Karaka was born in Auckland in 1952 where she continues to live and work. She belongs to the Tamaki Makaurau hapu (sub-tribe) of Ngai Tai. Karaka has exhibited regularly since 1980 and cites artists Colin McCahon, Philip Clairmont, Allen Maddox, Ralph Hotere and Tony Fomison among her mentors. Karaka is a well-known land claims activist, and is respected as a strong force in the Maori art movement of the 1980s.
Emily Karaka’s exhibition Settlement explores the Crown’s settlement process, old land claims and Turton Deeds transactions which alienated lands and islands from the Tribes of Tamaki. As a descendant of Kiwi Tamaki (who resided on many of the volcanic cones in Tamaki) and a descendant of the Ngai Tai Rangatira Nuku (who participated in land sales deeds and signed Te Tiriti O Waitangi at Karaka Bay in Auckland in 1840), the artist confirms: Ka Mau Mahara – we will remember.
Waitangi Wahine and Settlement: Emily Karaka will run until Sunday 3 April 2016 and entry is FREE.
Hastings City Art Gallery is open daily 10am – 4.30pm. Free entry.
201 Eastbourne Street East, Hastings
ENDS
News
Hilary Timmins' Award-Winning UK Documentary Series To Inspire NZ Students
29 Jun 2020 Education
Dream Catchers, produced and directed by Hilary Timmins, celebrates the success stories of more than thirty inspirational New... more
New Zealand reaffirms support for Flight MH17 judicial process
7 Mar 2020 News
Ahead of the start of the criminal trial in the Netherlands on 9 March, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has reaffirmed the need to... more
Business
NZ Government's Economic package to fight COVID-19
17 Mar 2020 Business News
The Coalition Government has launched the most significant peace-time economic plan in modern New Zealand history to cushion the... more
NZ Government announces aviation relief package
19 Mar 2020 Business News
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today outlined the first tranche of the $600 million aviation sector relief package announced earlier... more
Living
Diversity was Key at New Zealand Trade Tasting in London
6 Jun 2022 Food & Wine
New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Trade Tasting was recently held in London, on Wednesday 4 May, in Lindley Hall.
It was the first... more
Kiwi author stuns Behind the Butterfly Gate
12 Jan 2022 Arts
Hidden behind the Butterfly Gate is where the secret has been kept for 76 years...
New Zealand writer Merryn Corcoran’s... more
Property
Fairer rules for tenants and landlords
17 Nov 2019 Property
17 NOVEMBER 2019
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer... more
New Zealand Government will not implement a Capital Gains Tax
17 Apr 2019 Property
The Coalition Government will not proceed with the Tax Working Group’s recommendation for a capital gains tax, Jacinda Ardern... more
Migration
Boosting border security with electronic travel authority – now over 500,000 issued
19 Nov 2019 Migration
19 NOVEMBER 2019
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to... more
Christchurch reinstated as refugee settlement location
18 Aug 2018 Migration
18 AUGUST 2018
HON IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY
The announcement that Christchurch can once again be a settlement location for refugees... more
Travel
Gallipoli Anzac Day services cancelled
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
The New Zealand and Australian Governments have announced this year’s joint Anzac Day services at Gallipoli will be cancelled... more
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
more
Sport
The Skipper's Diary: Sir Richard Hadlee honouring his father and NZ's Forty-Niners
27 Oct 2019 Cricket
NZNewsUK London Editor Charlotte Everett spoke to Sir Richard Hadlee about why he’s chosen to publish his father’s... more
PREVIEW: All Blacks v England semi-final
26 Oct 2019 Rugby
The two most convincing quarterfinals winners are set to square off in a semifinal showdown for the ages when the All Blacks meet old... more
Columns
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
11 Nov 2016 Opinion
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
First published on Werewolf
The ghastly likes of Marine Le Pen in France and Geert ... more
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
10 Nov 2016 Opinion
Column - Gordon Campbell
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
Well um.. on the bright side, there (probably)... more
Kiwi Success
Congratulations to Loder Cup winner
26 Sep 2018 People
25 SEPTEMBER 2018
The Loder Cup, one of New Zealand’s oldest conservation awards, has been awarded to Robert McGowan for 2018... more
Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
16 Aug 2018 Appointments
16 AUGUST 2018Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
HON JENNY SALESA
Associate Education Minister Jenny Salesa is... more
Recruitment
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
14 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
22 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more