Maori Art

"Earlier provisional title was "Archaeology, Tourism, Museum...."

"This chapter is divided into two distinct sections that are positioned in a point-counterpoint structure of dialogue. These two position statements invoke the etymological meanings of the word essay, to attempt, put to the test, trial, to act out, to explore, travel, and travail. The first is an historical analysis written in the third person by an anthropologist whose expertise includes the ethnography of archaeology and the anthropology of tourism. The second is a counterpoint commentary written in the first person by an anthropologist whose specializations include Pre-Columbian and historical archaeology. Both of us have significant research experience in same area of the Maya world in Yucatán, México. From these two differing vantage points, we chart our perspectives on the relationship between archaeology and tourism in terms of the problems of exploration, protection, and exploitation.
In the first section, Castañeda takes an historical approach to the emergence of archaeology in the institutional context of the modern museum. He essays an analytical and theoretical manifesto about the deep, intimate interconnections between tourism and archaeology as revealed through an understanding of the museum. In his historical analysis of the role of archaeological representation in the museum, he identifies the sociological creation of universal heritage. He theorizes a notion of the universal citizen-heir as the implied benefactor of this universal heritage. In the second section, Mathews elaborates a commentary on this historical analysis of archaeology, tourism, heritage and the museum. Specifically, she counter-argues and assesses Castañeda theoretical and analytical claims through the use of archaeology and tourism at sites that are not postcard worthy. Together these two “attempts” grapple with the historical and contemporary interconnections between archaeology and tourism. Together we put to the test our typical assumptions about the ethics of archaeologists, tourists, and tourism promoters in the contemporary contexts in which we are now beginning to ask how and why archaeology and tourism are interwoven phenomena in today’s world.""

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori are overrepresented in criminal and mental health contexts, comprising only 14.9% of the nation, yet over 50% of institutional populations. These figures are not unique, but represent a broader struggle to overcome the legacy of colonization affecting indigenous communities worldwide. In response to these issues, I examine the impacts of Māori cultural expression in forensic mental health through an ethnography of the kapa haka rōpū (group) in the Kaupapa Māori forensic psychaitric unit, Te Papakāinga O Tāne Whakapiripiri. This unit reconceptualizes Western frameworks for mental health service provision, incorporating cultural education as an integral aspect of treatment, such as Māori performing arts (i.e., kapa haka). The unit also imbues Māori cultural values, practices, and forms of expression into daily life, an act that transforms the experience of institutionalization for tāngata whai i te ora (patients) and the practice of forensic mental health more broadly. In this dissertation, I first unpack the collaborative methodology developed in this research, providing a set of recommendations for a more “codetermined” research process. I then explain the research’s broader academic and social contexts, tracing the history of Māori music scholarship, and then the history of New Zealand’s cultural and political transformation from 1840 to the present. This culminates in an ethnography of Tāne Whakapiripiri, where I examine the impacts of the kapa haka program and the unit’s broader musical activities on tāngata whai i te ora and the clinical environment in four domains: te taha wairua (the spirit), te taha hinengaro (the mind), te taha tinana (the body), and te taha whānau (the community). Overall, this research illustrates that embedding forms of cultural expression such as kapa haka into the clinical model positively impacts tāngata whai i te ora, improving their understanding and experiences of themselves, their illnesses, and their environment. Such cultural expression also shows how a Kaupapa Māori framework transforms the institutional environment from a Western model emphasizing individualism, hierarchy, and isolation toward a more holistic, collective, and whānau-centered model that holds the potential to shift our understanding of what forensic mental health is and can be.

To everyone who worked on this project we warmly express our thanks to you all for the wairua and manaakitanga generously given to breathe life into the Ngä Pounamu Mäori Centre on the 2 nd floor in Christchurch Central City Library Tihei Mauri Ora! This booklet was compiled by Rhonda Thomson and Patricia Wallace, with photographs and additional material from staff at Christchurch Waterways, Christchurch City Libraries and members of Ngä Puna Waihanga.

Te Hau ki Turanga, built on the East Coast last century and now situated inside the Museum of New Zealand (formerly known as the Dominion Museum) in Wellington, is the oldest extant meeting house in New Zealand. By recounting its construction under Raharuhi Rukupo in the early 1840s, its subsequent removal to the museum in the 1860s, and its renovation in the 1930s by Sir Apirana Ngata and the School of Maori Arts and Crafts, many issues of theoretical interest can be examined. This house was built during a period of rapid technological, religious, political and economic development for Maori. These changes influenced the form and function of an emerging meeting house architecture. The removal of Te Hau ki Turanga 25 years after its construction raises questions not only of colonial ethics, but also of the reliability of ethnographic information. These points are discussed further in respect to the decontextualisation of the house within the museum over a 70-year period. A liberation, of sorts, was achieved during the renovation of Te Hau ki Turanga by the School of Maori Arts and Crafts, when the house became the prototype for Ngata's ‘traditional’ Maori meeting house revival. The implications of this use of Western scientific knowledge on the fabric and function of the house will also be analysed.

In 1967, philosopher Richard Rorty edited a volume with the programmatic title The Linguistic Turn. Since then, the social and cultural sciences have gone through several ›turns‹, e. g. the ›interpretative‹, ›iconic/pictorial‹, or the ›spatial turn‹. Such ›turns‹ stimulate new research perspectives and questions, as well as shifts in theory and method. In recent years, the ›material turn‹ is gaining prominence in the humanities and social sciences. The principle of ›thinking through things‹ and the claim that objects possess agency are especially provoking. This chapter explores the stimulating effects of the ›material turn‹ in the field of museum studies. Firstly, it recalls the early history of disciplines such as archaeology, cultural anthropology, folklore studies, and art history, which are essentially based on their involvement with material culture and on the establishment of the museum as a bourgeois institution. Secondly, it outlines the developments of the ›material turn‹ and its theoretical ambitions over the last decades. Thirdly, it discusses the theoretical and practical consequences of such a new perspective for University archives and collections, as well as for the public presentation of academic knowledge conveyed by objects and things.

Māori architectural discourse is only emerging gradually, as there is a great amount of oral, written, drawn, photographic and physical source material to reinterpret. This article, which is an architectural analysis of the architecture of the School of Māori Arts and Crafts, deals with a brief but important period in Māori architectural development. The large volume of written material left by Apirana Ngata and the School's officials forms the basis for this discussion. It is not an account of particular buildings, but an examination of the School's historical development and approach to architecture. The School, under the leadership of Sir Apirana Ngata, deliberately formulated new design philosophies and redeveloped old concepts to suit contemporary Māori needs, create a fresh pool of trained artists, and facilitate Ngata's particular social goals.

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2018. The Bird-man Cult in the Rapanui Rock Art and Oral Literature. Polynesia Newsletter, 16, pp. 2-32.

Keywords: writing, rongorongo, folklore, rock art, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, Easter Island, Polynesia, Quechua, Andean, Old Peruvian, Incan, petroglyph, archaeoastronomy, mythology

Two recent carved Maori meeting houses, one in a museum and the other on a polytech campus, manage to break down the boundaries between “contemporary” and “traditional” Maori art. Both houses also attempt to represent the whole of the institutions of which they are a part rather than only the Maori members of those institutions. This article argues that these innovations are connected, and that they reflect and help propagate a larger refiguring of the meaning of “biculturalism” in the settler state of New Zealand. As part of looking at the significance and effects of these houses, the article draws on ideas about genre and artistic practice to make an argument about how cultural and political change happens.

A brief overview of landscape in New Zealand experimental film 1970 to 2015. Includes reference to recent Maori moving image making and possible future conceptions of landscape.                              Abridged and updated version of an article originally published in Illusions Magazine #41. Back issues of Illusions can be ordered from PO Box 6476, Marion Square, Wellington, New Zealand.

In this essay I aim to use an art object, namely the 'Hei Tiki neck pendant', from the Sainbsury Centre for Visual Arts collection in Norwich to discuss issues of display and representation if it was to be placed in an other museological context. In this case, it has been decided to ideally relocate this particularly beautiful artifact in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington, on the North Island of Aotearoa. The nature of this choice lies behind the fact that the object belongs to Maori culture and more specifically to the Ngati Kahu iwi which is based in the vicinities of Taipa, a couple of hours north of Auckland. Moreover, the choice of this particular art display seems more than apt, especially because the collection in Wellington already includes a fairly large amount of Hei Tiki. In addition, it must be stated that this essay will not be a comparison between the current modalities of display of the object and the fictional, though potentially more appropriate, showcase in Te Papa. In fact, this essay will not dwell on the present issues of representation. Firstly, this essay will convey both a visual and formal analysis of the Hei Tiki, in order to gain a better understanding of the microcosm of intertwined functional, formal and spiritual assets revolving around it. As a matter of fact, the spiritual aspect has been included and separated from other spheres, because of its straightforward relationship to the mana of the object, the supernatural power that comes along with it which is undeniably undetachable from the Hei Tiki's physical existence. Subsequently, there will be a concise account of the Museum itself. This was deemed necessary in order to make the reader aware of the less familiar concept of a 'Pacific Museum' and how it works as a fully functioning emblem of bicultural assimilation, creating a binary ontological platform on which a pacific amalgamation of two cultures flourishes to the extent that the display of objects, such as the Hei Tiki in question, is fundamentally diverse and respectful of all the previously mentioned assets. Consequently, the object itself will be fictionally placed in the Museum and the singular issues of representation and agency will be addressed from a museological standpoint, though not neglecting other significant ideas that are generated from other contexts. A conclusion will follow summing up the key ideas and conveying them in more concise form to the reader.

Museum collections are increasingly subjected to scientific scrutiny, including molecular, isotopic and trace-element analyses. Recent advances have extended analyses from natural history specimens to historical artefacts. We highlight three areas of concern that can influence interpretation of data derived from museum collections: sampling issues associated with museum collection use, methods of analysis, and the value of cross-referencing data with historical documents and data sets. We use a case study that focuses on kiwi (Apteryx spp.) feather samples from valuable 19th century Maori cloaks in New Zealand to show how sampling and analysis challenges need to be minimized by careful design. We argue that aligning historical records with scientific data generated from museum collections significantly improves data interpretation.

This article draws upon a ‘tale from the field’ (Van Maanen, 1988) to encourage New Zealand and Australian teachers of history and social studies to appraise how their own perceptions of place and teaching about Indigenous peoples’ histories impact upon their students’ learning. Moreover, it explains why Uri Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems model (despite its limitations) can assist the process of critiquing the teaching of Indigenous histories in schools on both sides of the Tasman Sea. It concludes that place conscious Indigenous land-based learning experiences, resulting from mutually beneficial collaborations with Indigenous communities, are needed to enhance the teaching of Indigenous peoples’ histories in both countries.

The core theme of this essay is how far it is possible to actively construct identity through the appropriation of the ‘other’ when the ‘other’ is in dominant power relation vis-à-vis the appropriator. How far is this appropriation an act of self-subordination in which the subordinate group is internalizing the ideology of the dominant group, and how far could it be considered an act of self-determination, active identity building or even a subversive act? I am examining the appropriation of Christian iconography in Oceania by indigenous people. A topic too expansive even to summarize, I shall, therefore, use two case studies to tease out some of the most pertinent issues. This allows a more focused examination not afforded by the use of more numerous examples. The first case study examines a wooden statue of The Madonna and Child c. 1840 carved by a Maori Catholic convert and the second examines a photograph entitled ‘The Last Cannibal Supper’ 2010, by the Samoan, New Zealand born, artist Greg Semu.

This was one of a number of essays produced as part of the CD-Rom catalogue for the 'Techno Maori: Maori art in the digital age' exhibition I curated with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki when we both worked at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury. The exhibition was held at City Gallery, Wellington, and the Pataka, Porirua, 29 September to 2 December 2001.

In this paper I use interviews with one Maori artist to provide some preliminary thoughts on the ways Maori art can be used to understand Maori personhood. Art work is defined as taonga-whakairo and artistic talent as taonga-tuku-iho. Maori conceive both artistic talent and artistic production as taonga and I argue that the relationships between art, taonga, whakapapa and tipuna encompass networks of connections between persons, objects, and ideas simultaneously. I suggest a structural linkage between art, taonga, and exchange which form distributed social relationships. Underlying this is the proposition that artistic talent comes from the ancestors and involves particular responsibilities. Major points of argument are that: in Maori art, taonga and whakapapa interact to allow the possibility of things being persons and persons being things; taonga are fundamental to Maori concepts of tipuna and whakapapa; taonga and Maussian exchange relations are co-constituting; art-as-taonga is a productive means of understanding a Maori worldview; and that further study should be conducted into Gell’s (1998) ‘distributed person’ through analysis of taonga and Maori art.

Vincent, Nina. “Curadoria Nativa” no Museu “do Outro”: Um estudo sobre a exposição “Maori. Seus tesouros têm alma” e outros diálogos curatoriais no Museu do quai Branly. Dissertação (Mestrado em Sociologia e Antropologia). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2013.
Esta dissertação analisa a exposição “Maori. Seus tesouros têm alma” apresentada no Museu do quai Branly, em Paris - França, de setembro de 2011 a janeiro de 2012, que apresentou a cultura e a arte dos Maori, povo indígena da Nova Zelândia. A exposição foi caracterizada como a primeira experiência de “curadoria nativa” realizada na instituição e culminou com o repatriamento para a Nova Zelândia de vinte crânios mumificados maori que pertenciam a coleções de museus franceses. Ela marca o encontro do Museu Te Papa Tongarewa da Nova Zelândia, que preconiza controle nativo sobre os objetos levados para Europa por colonizadores, e o Museu do quai Branly, um museu de “arte etnográfica”, herdeiro de coleções coloniais e de uma visão universalista de culturas e de suas produções artísticas. Partindo de descrição etnográfica e análise estética, pretende-se explorar o processo de atribuição de agência a uma exposição, através da atividade curatorial. Para tanto, são relacionados elementos visuais e discursivos presentes na exposição e mobilizados para sua realização, explicitando o papel desempenhado por ela no discurso de “diálogo entre culturas” proposto pela instituição francesa. São trazidos contrapontos encontrados nas propostas curatoriais de outras exposições temporárias da mesma instituição e de sua exposição permanente, revelando o protagonismo do curador – que assume formas variadas, mais ou menos explicitadas – como principal mediador entre público e construções culturais traduzidas esteticamente.
Palavras chave: Arte, Objetos, Museu, Exposições, Curadoria, Estética, Agência, Museu do quai Branly, Maori

While Aotearoa/New Zealand is a world leader in the arena of family violence policy, it has a long history of violence between its Maori and Western inhabitants that continues to manifest in its policy-making structures. In this chapter, we shall introduce the Aotearoa/New Zealand cultural context and relate it to Kleinian psychoanalytic concepts (paranoid-schizoid position, splitting, idealization and introiection) describe a specific family violence policy called Te Rito before using Kleinian concepts to help us read this text. Finally, we shall critically reflect on the processes used in this chapler and explore implications of this analysis for family violence policy internationally.

The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum document (2000) is recognised by many arts educators as an innovative and inclusive model of arts education that establishes every child’s right to an education in Dance, Drama, Music and the Visual Arts. One significant and unique aspiration for the document is the inclusion of toi Māori, the arts forms of Māori, the indigenous people of the land. This paper examines how non-indigenous teachers in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s increasingly multicultural schools are being encouraged and supported to use The Arts to develop in their students a deeper understanding, appreciation and interpretation of Māori tikanga (beliefs and values), and taonga (treasures).

This file is a pre-publication version. Consult published volume for correct pagination and final version of text.

Te Papa is a state museum, funded by taxpayers of a secular nation. Its major goal is to articulate the spirit of New Zealand and represent the identity of its citizens. The manner in which it describes and celebrates the national soul is deeply spiritualised. This chapter questions the place of state institutions when they deal with, and stand in place of, sacred machinery. The sacrality of this New Zealand national gallery operates on a number of levels. Primarily, it seeks to tell the story of the nation, including narratives of origin and present-day unity. In addition, Te Papa seeks to catalogue and display the natural elements of New Zealand such as its geography and wildlife. This confirms the nation as a system that both studies and is integrated with its natural environment. Te Papa is also an important national art gallery. In this capacity, it develops sacral potential in two ways. It works as a collection of art and, in a manner outlined by Carol Duncan,  it acts as a legitimising force and ritual space for the display of artefacts that amplify the authority of New Zealand’s claims to ‘civilisation’. Te Papa also displays art that itself comments on the sacral dimensions of New Zealand, such as that of Colin McCahon.

Because Te Papa aims to be inclusive of the entire New Zealand experience, the gallery has become custodian of a range of sacred Māori items that must be dealt with religiously in order to honour their ongoing contribution and deep importance to local culture. Once, such items were collected because of their anthropological import when the academic pursuit, in its colonial guise, determined their value. Now, however, there has been a significant change in their religious status. Whilst many museums have placed Pacific cultural items behind the glass of the exhibition cabinet, Te Papa treats Māori culture as a dynamic and important element of the workplace and its collections. Rather than preserving sacred antiquities for display, Te Papa are devoted to returning important pieces to their traditional owners albeit with the foreknowledge that not all these traditional owners are alive or traceable.

This programme of repatriating human remains is of particular importance. Whilst most remains are returned to their decedents, un-provenanced remains are stored in Te Papa’s wāhi tapu – a sacred vault. The wāhi tapu is controlled and maintained via traditional ritual including ablutions before entering and the recitation of burial site prayers. Whilst culturally appropriate, these actions raise many questions in regard to where the line of secularity is drawn. It is on this particular blurred boundary that this chapter concentrates. Here I examine how sacral objects, including human remains, are treated in Te Papa in order to explore the state’s negotiation of religious values in the context of honouring enduring pre-colonial Māori belief systems. This highlights the very particular religious operation of the state itself and shows that arguments for or against the existence of a secularising state should not be based on that which is traditionally categorised as religious infrastructure by Western academia.

This paper presents a comparative study of how Canadian First Nations and New Zealand Maori peoples have employed digital technologies in the recording, reproduction, promotion and discussion of their cultural heritage. We explore a selection of First Nations and Maori initiatives that resist or creatively respond to the digitization and electronic dissemination of cultural “objects,” knowledges and landscapes as a continuation of social processes that have dynamically endured over more than two centuries. Our comparison also considers the limitations of conventional law in regard to the protection of indigenous cultural and intellectual property: expressions of traditional knowledge culture generally fall outside the protection of copyrights and patents, a situation that is often exacerbated when that heritage assumes digital forms.

Blending and contouring are fundamental tools in a tranny’s bag of tricks. Both empower, because they take for granted that light will create shadows; through blending and contouring makeup, concretized binaries can be infiltrated and analysed. Trans-people are often perceived as tricksters; people who hide parts of their lives away, to fit socially acceptable norms. This research flips perceptions and instead argues that acceptable norms embrace trickstery behaviours; rules of propriety intended to hide difficult social realities. A Trans perspective both blends and contours context; it allows fluid ways to interpret engagements. This research presentation analogises the shape-shifting methods of blending and contouring, to describe the transformative nature of a raranga research methodology. Raranga as a form of research helps to blend and contour; it is a means to reinterpret, reconceptualise and reorganise bound territories. This research applies raranga as intermediary praxis; a theory and practice which enables inbetween realities. This presentation uses raranga to describe three transitional research spaces; the inbetween of creative knowledge and logical knowledge; the inbetween of qualitative data and quantitative data, and; the inbetween of Indigenous theory and Western theory. I present performance as research output and ask participants to engage in a creative exercise. These modes will be used to explore multiple perspectives through trans-lenses and are intended toward data collection. Participation does not infer consent to participate in a research project.