Terri Te TauKia ora, I'm Terri Te Tau. I live in Pohangina village in the Manawatū, and I'm from the Wairarapa from Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu. 

Erena Arapere-BakerKia ora, I'm Erena. I live in Manawatū in Palmerston North, and I'm from Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Te Atiawa in the Kapiti Coast.

Contemporary HUMKia ora. Contemporary HUM has followed you from your inclusion in documenta 14 in 2017, Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh in 2019, and now, in 2024, you've been awarded the Golden Lion for the Best Participant in the International Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, which is one of the most prestigious art awards in the world. How has everything been for you since coming back to Aotearoa? 

TTTYeah, it was so nice. People are reaching out, friends and family, sending their congratulations and things. We haven't yet been able to get together and celebrate as a group, but we're hoping to at the end of the year.

HUMYou'll need to go back to Venice to de-install the work?

HUMThat would be really special. As you say, it's the second time you've installed this work. The first iteration was in Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington) in 2022. The curator of Foreigners Everywhere, the International Exhibition of the Biennale, Adriano Pedrosa, saw your work when he was in Aotearoa in 2023. Could you tell us about what it was like meeting him, and how that led to being included in the Biennale?

SHIt definitely did. Also, the amount of engineering and infrastructure that had to be green-lit for it to go ahead was massive. We weren't able to attach to the floor, the walls, the ceiling or the columns. It's a heavy, big bit of engineering, that work. So, there was lots of to and fro between Aotearoa and the Venice team as to how this would work. We had heaps of faith that it would, but Adriano really pushed for that work to be there in the entrance. He saw it at Te Papa and could envision it in his show and really advocated for us to have the space that would really showcase our work in the best way. 

EABIt [is] cool, knowing that he definitely understood the work and what we were trying to say with [it] initially at Te Papa, and for that to only add to the opening and the entranceway of the Venice Biennale curated exhibition in the Arsenale.

SHWe didn't see the specifications of the room until a couple of meetings in. The initial ones were like, “We have this work, it's about 12 metres wide [and] 24 metres long. It can be from four metres high. Then, down the line we were shown where it may be, in the Arsenale, and there were these columns there that were pretty intimidating to us. Takapau in some regards represents te whare tangata, a womb, a very feminine space. We were taken aback by the look of these phallic forms potentially bursting through intricate weaving.

I think in one meeting we said, “Would you like another work?” It was quite full on for us, conceptually, to wrestle with what that might look like. After amazing designers and engineers had a look and sent us some models, we ended up flipping the work around, so nothing was piercing it through the pattern. I think that it really brought out the architectural power of the weaving. It definitely feels like a whare (house) with those four columns connected to the ground. It's changed the work quite a bit from that first iteration at Te Papa.

TTTThe work that you mentioned before, as you walk in the front entrance, by Yinka Shonibare, [is] a traveller. It's like they're walking into this new experience, because the title is Foreigners Everywhere, so you get this real sense of people moving from one place to another. [The sense is] either transient or [they’re] going somewhere to settle, a discovery. So, it's quite exciting to have that work in the entrance as well.

TTTThat feeling of tension in the work [at the Biennale] comes through quite strongly, because, communities, to get anything to happen, [require] a lot of people working together in synchronised and sometimes quite messy ways, but there's this tension that holds everything together.

Yes, the whāriki element is very important, because that's where we draw the inspiration from. That's where the patterns come from. That aspect of it, especially because of the low light conditions, you can really feel quite strongly there.

HUMI remember seeing Takapau at Te Papa, and it seemed so perfect for that space. In the Biennale, it's so perfect in the space of the Arsenale as well. Both are equally strong, but having that kind of response to site without losing the core meaning is amazing. What was it like transporting and installing such a large-scale work?

EABWe’re really lucky and thankful that the boxes were there to greet us, because we know that's not always the case, and other artists around us were scrambling, ringing customs and things, trying to find their work to install it. 

HUMWhen we were in Venice, we spoke with artist, researcher and writer Rychèl Thérin. She told us a story from when she was in the space. She was just hanging around, listening to people, and she overheard a couple of women who came into the space. They read the label, and then they look at the work, and the first thing they say is, “Oh, this isn’t indigenous. But I love the reflective tape.” Because you've exhibited your work overseas so many times, how do you approach presenting your work to audiences who aren't familiar with mātauranga Māori (the body of knowledge originating from Māori ancestors) or Te Ao Māori (the Māori worldview), and who might be surprised by a challenge to stereotypical ideas of Indigenous art?

TTTIt’s great, too, if it does challenge people's perceptions. That's the cool thing about [presenting work] at exhibitions with people from a lot of different places. You're presented with these different stories and different experiences, [different] backgrounds and histories that inform that artwork. There's a lot of work I've seen at the exhibitions that we've been really lucky to be a part of that has really helped to change my way of thinking around certain things and assumptions that I had. 

HUMSomething that your work and Takapau does is make space for people. There's a real sense when you're in that space with Takapau that there's room for you. There's space given to the viewer to bring what they bring to the work, and that's such a big part of the work’s impact.

EABAnd mind-blowing. I still can't really comprehend how many people have already walked and will over the next few months walk under our work and experience it.

What we do is make it, and then it's up to everyone else to activate it, to bring life to it and to experience it. We don't usually get to see that. Sometimes, if we're around, we might hang out and watch people walking through the work, but usually we go home, and it's everyone else [that] gets to experience it.

RYCHÈL THÉRINMy name’s Rychèl Thérin. I am an artist and researcher and writer of Māori and Jerriais heritage. I have a BA in painting from the University of Arts London and finished my Masters in Māori Visual Art at Toioho ki Āpiti in 2012. I'm a mother of two children and I live in Vienna, Austria. 

I've written a paper called Mana Wāhine Māori and the Mataaho Collective: the power of collectivity and how we feed our roots. Basically, it's looking at the practice of Mataaho [and] how it started: four mates that just wanted to make art together and whose research interests had so many crossovers, like a really interesting Venn diagram that then brought them together.

That first work that they made, Te Whare Pora, started the main thread of practice that they have continued to [follow] for the last 12 years, where they take experiences of Māori wāhine (women) and use them—whether they're talking about goddesses or the experiences of Māori female artists, Māori women's experiences are always at the beginning of wherever they go with their work. 

There's also the idea of the wānanga. "Te whare pora" is the house of weaving, which is the house of women, although now it's wider. But nonetheless, there is something about this coming together and collectively making things for a community. That is in essence what Mataaho do.

I think there needs to be a nod to the educational trajectory that everyone in Mataaho has taken.

Three [members of Mataaho Collective] have studied under Bob Jahnke, who's also showing [in Venice], which brings a really amazing idea of lineage and generationality to the group of New Zealand artists that have come here. For Mataaho to be showing alongside Bob Jahnke, Fred Graham, Sandy Adsett and also Brett (Graham), is just wonderful, because it shows a trajectory of Māori contemporary art from the 1950s up until now. I think when you look at it all together, not only does it stand on an international level, but also you can start to see the whakapapa (genealogy) of that. 

What's particularly interesting with Mataaho, and how they've come to be here now, is [that they went] through the Toioho ki Āpiti programme with Bob. He really has grounded that programme, from the BMVA (Bachelor of Māori Visual Arts) to the MMVA (Master of Māori Visual Arts) to the PhD, in mātauranga Māori. Literally anyone who's anyone in Māori art has taught on that programme. Even that in itself is a way of bringing people along, and a way of giving access to young Māori creatives. 

On the wider exhibition scale of Bob being here with Mataaho, it really speaks to the fact that—well, [I] can only talk for Māori artists—it is a circular lineage of art making that is happening. Older artists are working with younger artists, and it's not that there's an “us and them” situation. It is like everyone is bringing each other along together, which is really beautiful.

HUMOn the topic of mentorship, Erena, Terri and Bridget, you were all taught by Robert Jahnke, who is also exhibiting in Venice as a part of Personal Structures, a parallel event to the Biennale. What is that like for you to be exhibiting in the same context as one of your mentors?

EABFor me, I was most excited [by] the fact that Bob [Jahnke] was going to be there. It meant that he could be there and see the work, and we could hang out with him [and] have a meal with him in Venice. That's the most exciting thing. To me, Bob's like an uncle, and you're just excited that they're going to see what you're doing and that you can see what they're doing too. We always talk about relationships in Māoridom, tuākana-tēina relationships, or relationships between a student and a mentor. It was comforting to know that he was there, but also to know that he would learn [from us]. We learn so much from him, but he also learns from us and experiences things through what you experience. It's like your children experience things through what you do as well. I don't think he ever set out to create students that we're going to be exhibiting in the Venice Biennale, but I bet it feels nice, just like it feels great for us to exhibit alongside him in Venice. 

EABWe don't go on our own. We bring these people with us, anyway. There are so many other people that have taught us and that have been working so hard as contemporary Māori artists before us that we were bringing along on the journey in our hearts and minds and thoughts, anyway. There are so many people that have opened doors for us. Just through the doorway from our work is Brett Graham's and Fred Graham's work, and to be exhibiting alongside them… They're superstars to us.

EABYeah, who's coming up next behind us?

HUMThings look quite different for Aotearoa at the Biennale this year. There are the most artists from Aotearoa to ever participate in the Biennale at once, but there isn’t a national pavilion. Creative New Zealand supported you to bring your work over to Venice, but, in general, the distribution of funds has been different, compared to a pavilion year, given the number of Aotearoa artists who are presenting. In terms of funding infrastructure, I wonder if you could offer some reflections on the current state of public funding in New Zealand?

TTTI was thinking about how resourceful our communities are. Whether it's fundraising for kapa haka (Māori performing arts) or uniforms and sports, weavers, carvers [are] making it happen. It's incredible what people achieve on not very much. I'm thinking how, if that mahi were [better] supported, what could be achieved? It's a rough time at the moment, isn't it? So many people are losing their jobs. This work will continue, and it will be for the love of it, and because people love coming together and doing things [as] collectives. But, hopefully it won’t suffer too much, because people just give and give, don't they? Just to get things across the line.

HUMNot only were you awarded the Golden Lion for the Best Participant in the International Exhibition, but Archie Moore was awarded the Golden Lion for the Best National Presentation for kith and kin in the Australian Pavilion. To close, I wonder if you have any reflections on what it means for this year to have been such a successful year on the global art world stage for Indigenous art.

HUMWe were watching the live Golden Lion ceremony when we were in Venice, and couldn’t really believe it. To see work coming from Aotearoa, work you're so familiar with, get that recognition is a pretty amazing feeling.

EABWe were given the link [to the awards ceremony] to send to some friends and family, but just moments beforehand. It was quite cool. We were sending messages home to our family, saying, “We're getting an award! Watch this link!” And so many of them did watch it, which is really cool. 

SHWe definitely couldn't have gotten over to Venice, all four of us, without Creative New Zealand and Te Papa. That's been really huge. Funding at the moment in Aotearoa is a big contentious subject under this new government that's not that new anymore, and I think it will continue to be so for the next three years. So, [we’re] just really appreciative, but [we’re] also aware [that] the environment at the moment is really hard for artists. We feel that too. We've been feeling that for the last wee while. So, I just wanted to mihi (acknowledge) to everyone who's coming through. It's graft, but it can be really amazing and worth it when you've got your people around you.