Contemporary HUMCongratulations on participating in the Venice Biennale. What was the process of being invited to participate in the curated section?

HUMThe work is called Wastelands. Would you be able to describe your work, what it's made of and where it's located?

So, the idea was a pātaka, but of course the whole thing is covered in this layer of eels. There's literally, in some places, wood that is 70 centimetres thick that has been carved with eels. They immerse the form. Then you've got wagon wheels that I've sourced from elsewhere and then two shafts, and the shafts have hands on them, which very much come from niu poles, which are part of the Hauhau or Pai Mārire [movement]. The idea of the niu poles was this belief that you're receiving and sending messages from this pole, so you commit your karakia around them. But in the context of this crisis that befalls us now with climate change, this crisis [where] we can go on the way we are and it'll lead down this track or we can choose a new pathway and we'll have salvation, or we'll recover from this situation that we're in, the idea [was] this choice before you in the hands, but [still] very much alluding to the niu poles and the idea of giving and receiving messages, like an Indigenous satellite.

In the same way that I'd changed the language of the tuna (eels), I wanted to refer to a more naturalistic hand to talk about that period of change and turbulence. It's interesting, because [in] my father's work, he very much alludes to the [traditional] three-fingered hand [and] I wanted to suggest the same idea, but also that period of change, when things started to get mixed up, which reflects my identity, and it creates a sort of cultural dynamism that didn't exist before. It's slightly unsettling as well, which is the purpose. 

BGNiu poles were fascinating because they reflect that period of change. Te Ua Haumēne, who was the prophet of that movement, created the Pai Mārire. He had been conscious of Europeans and their bizarre rituals. All these things we take for granted were actually unique in Aotearoa at one stage, and considered foreign or strange. So, flag poles, the idea of the soldiers gathering around them and saluting this thing which is material and wood, seemed so bizarre to Māori. They thought if they're going to spend all this time doing these weird things around them, they must have some sort of spiritual power, so that's why there was that fascination with flags as [being capable of] sending messages to the atua (gods), to the realm above, so they would imitate these rituals. That's where the niu pole came from. The extension of that idea was that they actually carved them with hands, so [there’s this] idea of appropriating technology to make it your own. 

I've been fascinated by looking at settler letters, [though] even the word settler is contentious in some circles. Reading the letters was quite fascinating, because right from the onset of Europeans and English being in Aotearoa, there were certain assumptions that they made and that was that eventually all of the land, even though people lived there, would be theirs and all of the resources would be theirs. There was no question of that. What also fascinated me was everything had a value. Because they're convincing their relatives in England that they weren't crazy for coming all that way, they put a monetary value on everything: land, the price of the blacksmith, the cobbler, so I found that quite intriguing as well. 

In the work I made in Tai Moana Tai Tangata, I had videos that showed the Taranaki coastline and elsewhere, like a place called Ohawe, for example. There are shots of the cliffs and it's almost as if the sand is dropping into the ocean. On one of the cliffs, for example—I'm reminded of this because I went to a talk yesterday, where they talked about the dangers of deep sea mining—that coast is being exposed, and although Ngāti Ruanui (iwi affiliated with the Taranaki region) have been fighting, and under the last government there was no chance of deep sea mining, under this government, the avenues have opened up for those companies to get the consents to mine again. In the film, I make reference to the fact that my great-grandfather was buried at an urupā (burial ground) on one of the cliffs, and that urupā has since dropped into the sea. Essentially, those companies are getting profit from bones that have become the sand. So, those are some of the background ideas that I had when making this work: looking very much at the past, the present, and the future, and trying to draw those things [together].

BGIt's complicated. The [work] description talks about wastelands as being swamp land, and they certainly were, but the Waste Lands Act was interesting in that it actually referred to all land that came to be in the government’s possession that was then sold on to settlers, because the treaty meant that you could not, as a settler, approach Māori directly and say, “sell that land to me.” You had to do all your transactions through the Crown, so any of the land that came into the possession of the Crown was sold to the Crown by Māori [and] was then sold on to those settlers who wanted land. But any [part] of that land was called, effectively, “wasteland”, [and] I just found that term so bizarre, because no land is wasteland to Māori. Every colonial account you seem to read about [settlers] arriving in Aotearoa, they always say, “In the beginning, when we came, there was nothing here but swamp, from Christchurch all the way to Waikato.” In fact, you go to the Christchurch Museum and the first thing you read is a plaque that says, “There was nothing in Christchurch but swamp.” But, of course, that swamp was an incredibly valuable resource to Māori, so that's what I'm alluding to: how we look at our histories and how we potentially need to revert to looking at Indigenous knowledge systems to get us back on track. Like peat swamps, [for example]. Peat swamps were the enemy of the colonial farmer, when they were draining the land, especially in Waikato, but it's interesting because peat swamps are 3% of the land’s surface, but they contain something like 40% of the world's carbon. So, of course, once they're drained, they release all of that carbon. Peat swamps are also fascinating because, at home, they tend to be where forests were, so there are essentially layers and layers of history and of former forests: thousands of years of layers, so even that is quite fascinating. 

Adriano had asked me to respond to my father's work. He always was very clear about my father's work being on the wall and then me making something for the space, which suited me fine. At first I thought, “Jeez, this is a chance to make something that looks physically like my father's work,” because I was brainwashed at an early age. I know that style so well, the three fingers and the thrown-back heads and so on. I grew up with that. All of those works in the show, I grew up with. One of them, Whiti Te Rā (1966), used to be at our dentist's place. I love that work. There are so many images. There's one of my father standing heroically by Whiti Te Rā [as] a young man in his forties, clearly proud that they had contemporised the style; they took elements of traditional art, they took elements from the West. Then there's another image of him and of that work in his studio, and I'm seven and proudly holding up these paintings that I'd made of airplanes or whatever they were.

The other works in the show I [also] grew up loving as a child. In fact, it was kind of a shock to see a couple of them. I thought they were much bigger. Imagine these massive things as a five year old, especially Maui Steals the Sun (1971). In fact, I went so far as to write that this thing was two metres long. I think Adriano was a little bit annoyed at me, because we went to the space and it’s one metre. It’s the same size as the other one, but anyway… they’re big stories. 

So, there are those four works that I grew up with. But then I thought I should do something the way I do things but look at the themes of his work, and one of the most fundamental elements is that they're homages to nature and homages to Papatūānuku (Earth, Earth Mother). Maui stealing the sun and the Tinirau story (Tinirau and the Whale, 1971) are very much about what happens when humans manipulate nature, but they're also fundamental stories—purākau, we call them—that lay out how people deal with situations. There are examples that we use to determine protocols in those two stories, certainly the Tinirau story, but they are homages to nature as well. I wanted to take those ideas and put that into this work and in combination with the idea of looking at how the greed for using resources had ultimately led to this crisis that we're in now with climate change. 

HUMSomething you've spoken about before is the historical role of Venice as a major trading port and point of connection between East and West. I wondered if you have thoughts about what kind of meanings your work takes on in the context of Venice and its history as this major point of early empire?

HUMThis year, there is strong Māori representation within the Biennale and events that are running at the same time. What do you think about having such strong representation of Ngā toi Māori at this major international event?

HUMWe've spoken a little bit about the inclusion of your father in the curated section and the dialogue between your works. How is it for you to have that whānau representation in Venice?

HUMThere isn't a national pavilion for Aotearoa this year, but the public funding that would have typically gone towards a pavilion has gone towards supporting the artists exhibiting in the curated section, which are more than ever before. The Biennale is such a complex international event; I wondered whether you could explain what it's like being an artist to put together a project of this scale and how it’s supported, from the Biennale to public funding or other resources you've had to put together yourself?

HUMAbsolutely, because Mataaho Collective’s work Takapau (2024) is the very first work that you see. 

HUMAnd then your work is not much further from theirs.