Author: Maia

My culture is decoration for the City. My culture is only an easter egg hunt in the Western World I call Auckland City. I am not represented, not enough.

Using art works that relate to our knowledge and history I chose the Polynesian Navigation system (bottom right), one of the most genius understandings of our seas using the stars, wind and the ocean the Polynesian people were able to sail from Antartica to South America, I wanted to honor that. I searched for talented Maori/ Polynesian artists I chose works from @Emanuele_tolotti_tribal_works (pattern, bottom left) and @bestmaori (stingray, left) their stunning creative work inspired me and taught me alot about pattern work. Te Ika o Maui (center) I wanted to incorperate our Maori myths, I love this because it’s pulling up the North Island /City sort of revitalising our Maori culture. The Enterance, a welcoming for everyone to my City, and the phrase “when will my culture be represented in my City” a protest peice, for the audience to think, is there a problem in representation of its indiginous people? A whakatuki “Ko nga pae tawhiti whaia kia tata, ko nga pae tata, whakamaua kia tina” “the potential for tomorrow depends on what we do today” I didnt put the translation up simply because we have information on our phones, but the right people will be curious enough to actually try and learn.

I would change a few things. If I had time I would add more, ideas like the stop and start signs in Wellington (Haka for stop and Karanga for go) a sort of modernised approach to City concepts is interesting to me, more reaserch into other Maori artists and know how to edit their original artworks and print ontop of the buildings and definitely reaserch into Maori architecture, and how I could not only incorperate our art, history and myths on walls but also our cultural influence on buildings, our carvings, etc, because we shouldn’t only be on the City walls.

Our city has been colonised, when you see a photo of Auckland (without the Sky Tower) it is completely ambiguous, compared to Italy, Japan, Germany, their architecture is obvious. With my peice I want to explore incorperating our culture wih Maori artists, and add them into our most populated area of New Zealand.

I had a tiki tour around the city, specifically looking for a ‘blank canvas’ on the city walls, wasted potential to add culture and our knowledge to our cities, I want to incorperate Maori and Pacifican culture, ideas like our navigation system, taniwha, maori myths. Incorporating Maori Artists, historical drawings and myself, i want to fill these blank walls.

if you lost it today, would you forget it exsisted? : no, its the little I have from Nanny

How does it remind you of home? : back at Napier, just remind me of where im supposed to be, the city isint my home.

purpose? : letting me inside my house

what emotion does it give you knowing its significant value? : nostalgia, sadness

could you give this away? who? : to the future generations, maybe, but i would rather die with it.

memory behind it? : memory of my Aunty and the trip we went on to Japan and our visit up north.

Looking at the old and new, neighbours that i feel relate.

I went later in the day, at sunset, it gave a stalkish feel, or lonely from the point of view, seeing lights on while im outisde in the cold was a cool idea, I felt left out, I can see that with how these are framed. knowing it was dinner time and I was outside gave the feel of invisible.

It was hot, i felt like a tourist, and was focusing on big and powerful things, im not really interested in the small objects, artworks and culture were my main focus.

Weaving incorperated throught my art peices. not only can you see the theme in my art peices but I also incorprated haraekeke (flax) to the presentation to show the maori traditional ideas. the peices on the bottom represented nature, in a way i could see mountains. and the mask tieing both ideas in, saying as a maori tangata (person/people) i am a product of my home.

I am focusing on the patern of weaving, souly focused on indiginous themes and incorprating distinctive ideas that are clearly linked to the Maori culture.

Harakeke flowers

making the theme of Maori influence more obvious, I wanted to incorporate harakeke (flax) pattern and shaping it into a flower. i previously wanted to make my own harakeke flower as it is a skil my tipuna kuia (grandmother) tought me but due to time i was unable to do so.

My idea to sew and fill a pillow with fastcrete with someone ‘sleeping’ on top originated from the thought of being comfortable with the uncomfortable and staying there. through my mistakes I gained a better understanding of how to use fastcrete, which helped me make more sculptures that tie into the weaving theme.

The final product, would change one thing, the plastic that I used took over the pttern and not fully what I intended overall I love the pattern and im happy with the result.

I wanted to approach this differently, using my favorite book Desert Flower by Waris Dirie, I used a plastic sheet and drew ontop, tracing the letters A and E.
The random pattern created layers which I loved. One thing I would change is using proper markers, I wanted more contrast but the black over powers the red.