Academic literature on the topic 'Maori Carving'

A whakapapa of the marae Whakapapa, a Maori word, is often abstracted to the English language as the word genealogy. Whakapapa however has a more subtle and comprehensive meaning in Maori. In that language it has complex connotations of genealogical lines, yes, but also the history of the people involved and perhaps most importantly, the inter-relationships between those people. Degrees of consanguinity are all important when establishing relationships within Te Ao Maori - the Maori world. Marae, the basis of this thesis, is another Maori word. A marae, at its simplest, might be referred to as an agglomeration of separated, functional buildings on an area of reserved land, usually deemed to be sacral to some extent. Marae have an ancient history both in New Zealand Maori culture, but really originating at least in part, in the older cultures from which our Maori culture was eventually derived, from other, earlier settled, Pacific Islands. This thesis then is a genealogy, a sort of cultural history of marae, but is based on the idea and Maori sense of the whakapapa and so partakes of the nuances involved. It is these additional complexities that are referred to by the use of the word whakapapa in the title of this thesis. This thesis investigates the lineage of the marae, tracing it back to legendary roots, but it also examines the relationships between the components of the marae and also the place the marae has established within Maori (and other) communities. Beyond the historical forms of the marae that this thesis investigates are the other aspects that delineate what a marae really is. It is not simply a group of buildings at all, although this is a common non-Maori understanding of its disposition. A marae is a tapu or sacred space, and within or nearby that space are buildings whose form, function and meaning have only come to their present conjunction in (written) historic times. What makes the marae is the combination of the people and the ritual that is involved on a marae, the marae space and lastly, the physical buildings. The buildings, particularly carved houses, have additional meaning that they lend to the thread of the story. They themselves represent the whakapapa of the marae, and specifically of the hapu (or sub-tribe) who inhabit that marae. They do this by direct representation, but also by analogy and by spiritual means that are little dealt with in most literature. Ancestors in Te Ao Maori are deemed to exist within the very fabric of the building and have a renewed or continuing existence that is created in the first instance by a melange of ritual and belief. This thesis discusses both the usage of ritual to create such physical interjacence, utilised in modern times within whare (houses), and the continued use of regular ritual on marae for human functions. It is only together that a complete modern marae is created. With any of these elements missing the marae form is truncated or lessened and diminished in some ways. So, marae which have been recreated in preserved forms, such as those in museums, are discussed at length in this thesis, by contrast with marae in regular usage for 'traditional' purposes. In essence then, this is an investigation of the marae, but in terms, manners and ways, which have not always been fully or comprehensively dealt with before.

E. Mervyn Taylor (1906-1964) was a pakeha artist whose prints drew influence from Maori culture and motif. He was one of a small number of artists who developed interest in Maori culture during the 1940s and 1950s. He expanded interest into detailed study of Maori culture, and interaction with Maori, and produced a significant body of prints on this subject during his career. Taylor's prints were acclaimed during his lifetime, but in the decades after his death, his reputation faded to the extent that he became relatively obscure. This persisted until the late 1980s, when art historical reassessment of his work began. This thesis forms a part of this continued re-evaluation. It focuses on Taylor's prints on Maori subjects, an area not sufficiently scrutinised in an academic context. It aims to reach deeper understanding of his prints through historical analysis of the factors that influenced him to choose Maori, and their culture as subjects for his artwork. The thesis also examines why Taylor's reputation was so emphatically based on his New Zealand heritage, as well as the quality of his craftsmanship, his beliefs about which formed the foundation of his philosophy. Nationalist and regionalist notions also figured in his aesthetic ideals. His prints are also placed in relation to the modern debate over cultural appropriation in art. Greater recognition and understanding of Taylor's oeuvre may be achieved by establishing why he chose Maori subjects, and what specific features they contributed to the character of his work.

This research posits art as an encounter, an encounter between the conceptual worlds of artists and of viewers. It acclaims the respective art skills within the marae (communal meeting place) named Tangatarua at Waiariki Institute of Technology, Rotorua. Tangatarua Marae is a place of bicultural encounter. This writing includes readers in the social relations of this encounter. This is a qualitative study that uses an interpretive epistemology to examine some of the art forms of Tangatarua. My focus is on micronarratives - that is, on intimate, improvised meanings generated by some of the small artworks. These reference and affirm the symbolism of the carvings but are less visible due to their lesser scale and interstitial placement within the interior architecture. They are rendered more visible through the phenomenological detail of participant accounts as well as the positivism of a formalist critique. I posit art as a dialogical activity, inseparable from the phenomenological conditions that precede and inform it, and inseparable from the emergent meaning that is forged at its encounter. I contend that the collaborative mode of art production within Tangatarua embodies this dialogical model. I amplify some of the tangible art forms of Tangatarua by dismantling the intangible discursive forms that have impinged on them. These include aspects of the political context of the establishment of the marae, Waiariki Institute of Technology’s bicultural framework, and the pedagogy of its Art School. My writing is underpinned by a participatory paradigm acknowledging my situatedness as an artist participant within Tangatarua, a woman of Ngai Tahu descent, and art tutor at Waiariki Institute of Technology. This study similarly acknowledges the multifaceted, experiential transactions between those artists whose small collective gestures have informed and transformed the interior of Tangatarua.

Prior to the 1950s, visual culture within tribal environments could be separated into customary and non-customary. In the early 19th century, customary visual culture maintained visual correspondence with prior painted and carved models of the pre-contact period. In the latter part of the 19th century, non-customary painted and carved imagery inspired by European naturalism informed tribal visual culture. This accommodation of European imagery and practice was trans-cultural in its translation to tribal environments. In the 1960s, an innovative trans-customary art form evolved outside tribal environments, fusing customary visual culture and modernism. This trans-customary art form, which maintained visual empathy with customary form of the 19th century, was introduced into the tribal environment, initially, in a painted mural in 1973, and subsequently in a multimedia mural in 1975. In 1989 and 1990, this trans-customary Maori art practice informed the art of the Taharora Project at Mihikoinga marae in Ohineakai. In this Project, the 1970s transcustomary Maori art precedents were extended with non-customary form and practice. The thesis employs tataitanga kaupapa toi as a paradigm for Maori cultural relativity and relevance en-framing form, content and genealogy. Annexed to this paradigm are a range of methods: a tataitanga reo method for interpreting Maori language texts; a tataitanga korero method, conjoining a kaupapa Maori and an iconographic approach, for interpreting meaning in tribal visual culture, and a tataitanga whakairo method, incorporating stylistic analysis as formal sequence, semiology and intrinsic perception, for analysing a continuum of stylistic development from the Rawheoro School of carving to the Taharora Project. The Taharora Project constitutes the case study where tribal visual culture and contemporary art within tribal environments are contextualised in a trans-cultural continuum. The critical question that underpins this thesis is how do form, content and genealogy contribute to art that resonates with Maori? The thesis concludes that trans-cultural practice in contemporary art can resonate with Maori if the art maintains visual correspondence or visual empathy with customary tribal form. In their absence, cultural resonance can be achieved through a grounding of the content, informing the art, in a paradigm of Maori cultural relativity and relevance, a tataitanga kaupapa toi. The genealogy of the artist is a further determinant for resonance.