| The Maori settlement of Piritahi Marae sits at the base of a green hill on Waiheke Island, New Zealand. It is flanked by a pebbly beach that borders the community of Blackpool, and this is the place where eight Maori women have been residing and working, and are now exhibiting their artwork.
The Mana Wahine Arts Symposium was conceived by artists Lorna Dixon and Waikarere Gregory to coincide with Mana Wahine Week, an annual event that honours the contributions of Maori women to their communities. Dixon and Gregory had become tired of attending arts symposia simply to support their male partners, and noticed that women artists were not being recognized and supported at events of this kind. Both found that women were rarely represented – and when they were, they were inaccurately depicted as crafters skilled only at traditional forms of raranga (flax weaving). To change this perception and give women a shot at the spotlight, Dixon and Gregory invited six other artists to live in Blackpool for six days, and then to exhibit and sell their work over Easter weekend.
When I visit on the last day of the symposium, the exhibition is accompanied by outdoor performances of songs and poems. The art pieces are shown in a lodge, and visitors are compelled to leave their shoes at the door and pad around silently, a touch that makes the event simultaneously casual and reverent.
The pieces exhibited differ from each other contextually and visually, but there are common threads. All the artists favour indigenous New Zealand materials, many refer to traditional Maori art forms, and certain images are echoed from artist to artist: masks, fish and curved, organic lines. Several women incorporate woven grasses and native timber such as totara and kauri, and use these media to interpret their particular geography and history. Occasionally an artist’s personal ancestry will spark surprising combinations: Elizabeth Alexander – part Maori and part Irish – makes jewelry out of bone, horn and mother-of-pearl, held together with silver Celtic knots.
Waikarere Gregory constructs wall-mounted pieces out of stainless steel and harekeke (flax). Hammered steel and copper contrast with flowing, dyed grasses to produce a striking texture and a sense of balanced tension. Gregory is primarily concerned with reintroducing the art of raranga – which she learned from her aunts when she was a child – to a contemporary context. Noelle Jakeman, on the other hand, works with unfired clay, which is not a traditional Maori artform. Conceptually linked to Gregory but pursuing an opposite end, Jakeman is determined to take an outsider art form and introduce it to a Maori context. Other artists have included installations, sketches, poetry and sculpture.
Despite their cultural link, the women come from different backgrounds and represent different Maori communities. Some of the artists studied art in university; some, like sculptor Tui Hobson, learned carpentry techniques at a polytechnical institution; and others are simply reinventing crafts they learned from relatives. Their ages and accolades are also diverse – Noelle Jakeman and fibre artist Kelly King are well-established, while poet Jaqueline Carter admits she is only just beginning to take herself seriously.
It was the organizers’ intentions to provide good role models for young people and those hoping to pursue the arts. They wanted to host an event tailor-made for Maori women that was nonetheless inclusive and accessible. Pulling my shoes back on on the sunny porch, surrounded by artistic wahine, old men, happy kids and passers-by, I have to admit it’s a mighty welcoming place. |
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