Publication Details Hardcover 287 x 220 mm; Full Colour; 72 plates; 150 pages; 1 kg. ISBN: 978-1-98-854307-9
Author and/or Editor name/s Artist: Brett Graham; Editor: Anna-Marie White; Designer: Neil Pardington; Contributors: Brett Graham, Anna-Marie White, Hanahiva Rose, Te Ingo Ngaia, Darcy Nicholas and Nancy Marie Mithlo
Author and/or Editor bio/s Brett Graham is a sculptor who creates large scale artworks and installations that explore indigenous histories, politics and philosophies. Graham lives and works from Waiuku on the southern shore of Manukau Harbour though has been a constant traveller through his career, undertaking residences through Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific), North America and Europe. He conceives his Māori whakapapa as a Pasifika/Moana identity and affiliated with a global network of indigenous and non-Western peoples. It is from this basis that Graham’s work engages with histories of imperialism and global indigenous issues.
Anna-Marie White (Te Ātiawa) was the curator at The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Nelson between 2005-2015. She holds a PhD in contemporary Māori art from Victoria University of Wellington, focussing on the period between the 1970s and the 2000s. Likewise her curatorial practice is focussed on identity politics in New Zealand art specialising in contemporary Māori art.
Year of Publication 2021
Publisher Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
Abstract In 2018 Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura, Tainui) spent six weeks in Taranaki as the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery’s artist-in-residence. Connecting with tangata whenua and his extended whānau, Graham researched the history of the relationship between Taranaki and Tainui Māori, focussing on the pact of solidarity forged during the New Zealand Wars, a relationship known today as Te Kīwai o te Kete.
Tai Moana Tai Tangata conjures up the territories held between Taranaki and Tainui Māori. Defined by the black sands of Te Uru (the west coast), this area reaches from Manukau in the north to Ohawe in the south. This landscape is marked by monuments that open portals to the past and cast the lessons learned by our ancestors into the future. These prophetic visions forecast a dark world corrupted by human endeavour and issue a grave warning in the present.
This catalogue captures the 2020-21 exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, significantly extending the themes, narratives and histories captured by the artist in that standout exhibition.
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