Robert JahnkeI received an email inviting me to participate. It kind of came out of the blue. One of the things that they do as part of the European Cultural Centre is feature educational institutions, and, of course, people that teach within those institutions. That's how it developed, and then through a number of introductions and communications the invitation came, [but it came] a long time before I did this last body of work. I indicated initially the various compositions associated with the exhibition. But, I also had a work that I was thinking of creating around the same time, and also offered that as a possibility. So, it went through several transitions and changes and finally ended up with the one that's downstairs, which I'm really pleased with, because it's the one that was really what the exhibition was about and it's the one that carries the name of the exhibition as well.

It gave me the opportunity to create a work that resonated not only with Te Kooti [Arikirangi Te Tūruki], but also with the previous work of Paratene Matchitt, who passed away a couple of years ago. It was my tribute to him, because I'd previously used him as a role model, particularly when I was starting out in creating sculpture back in the 1990s. He was a very big influence on my use of medium. I think a lot about what medium would suit the technology that I'm working with at any particular time. With this body of work, timber, powder-coated steel and two-pot lacquer timber frames are part of the aesthetic, which in a sense is a reference to Ralph Hotere’s later work, when he started using the pristine frames to frame a lot of his more abstract works. That’s how it came about.

In the end, as far as that work downstairs is concerned, Creative New Zealand gave me funding to make it, and I thank them for that. But, they didn't give me any funding to come here and transport the work and all those other fees associated with it. So, all you do is bite the bullet, and spend the money, and then turn up. Hence, I’m here.

RJFirst of all, the frames are a series of triangles, both upright and inverted, and there are five in total. The frames are made out of powder-coated mild steel, and they're 200 millimetres deep, which means that they stand off the wall considerably. Within that frame structure there are a series of neons: red, white and blue, and they form patterns that are associated with Te Wepu, which was Te Kooti’s battle flag. The symbols begin with the crescent moon, [and] next to the crescent moon is a triangle, which represents the mountain, because in the original flag the mountain was an embroidered, illusionistic rendering of a mountain. Next to that is the bleeding heart, and then to the right of the bleeding heart is the cross. Finishing off the composition is the star, and it happens to be the Star of David. There are a lot of symbols there that exist within or have resonance within the contemporary context.

The red, white and blue is a reference to the colonial context of Te Kooti's rise to becoming one of the most important Māori prophets within Te Ao Māori (the Māori world, the Māori worldview). They’re the colours on the New Zealand flag, but they also [make up] the uniform of the colonial soldiers, so that's why those colours are there. The particular technique involves a rear mirror behind the neons, and then there is what's called a one-way glass on the front of the frame, and what that does is creates reflections back in space. I have been seduced by the idea that this element of reflection is not so much like going back into darkness, but like coming out of the darkness, which equates with the Māori concept of Te Ao Mārama (the World of Light) coming from Te Kōre (realm of potential being, The Void) and also from Te Pō (darkness, the Perpetual Night). Throughout my engagement with the neons, there's always been this conceptual layering associated with cosmo-genealogical origins and developments into Te Ao Mārama. 

What's interesting about the use of those symbols is how people will respond to them within the contemporary context, because they're from a flag that was created in the 1860s by Catholic nuns in Hawke's Bay. The flag was created by the Catholic nuns for Ngāti Kahungunu, which is the tribal group in Hawke's Bay. What's ironic is that the mountain that they created was a snow-capped mountain, almost like Mount Taranaki. But, there are no mountains in Hawke's Bay [laughs]. There are little hills in Hawke's Bay. So, it becomes very iconic in terms of this very structured, symmetrical mountain. In creating the other images, they're sewn cut-outs of the symbols, so you have a red cut-out of the crescent moon, and they're stitched with cotton, beautifully crafted. It's a very strong flag; it's quite long, and it's about two feet high. It's a big, big flag. So, that's the source of the imagery as far as how the forms are made.

RJIt's interesting. In 1840 Bishop William Williams arrived in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, which is Gisborne, and started the Anglican mission there. Te Kooti was an adolescent at that time, and he attended the missionary schools that were set up by Williams. In 1865, what happened was the followers of the Pai Mārire [religion] from Taranaki had gone further down the East Coast, into the area that I'm from, and caused problems [there] in terms of their message. Because, where I'm from, the religion was Anglican, and there was a very early development of the religion in that area as a consequence of one of the Ngāti Porou slaves returning from North Auckland and spreading the Christian message. So, by the time the missionaries got there, most of the hapū (subtribes) and iwi (extended kinship group, tribe) in the Tairāwhiti [region], were already baptised and following Christianity. There was a strong church missionary society focus within that area, and that increased with the presence of the missionaries in Gisborne. By 1865, the Pai Mārire followers from Taranaki started to move towards Gisborne and then ended up in Gisborne. That started an exchange between the colonial forces and the Pai Mārire, and, of course, their appearance in Gisborne led to some early conversions to the Pai Mārire religion. There was all this tension going on in terms of not only religious but past inter-tribal settlements, because there was a problem associated with the leaders from the Tairāwhiti area, and those mainly in Rongowhakaata (iwi affiliated with the Gisborne region). There's always been this kind of tension between those tribal groups. 

Te Kooti was actually part of the Tūranganui contingent assisting the colonial troops to rebel against the Pai Mārire presence in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, and he ended up being accused of helping the Pai Mārire contingent and getting arrested, and essentially imprisoned without trial, and ended up in the Chatham Islands in the post-1863 period. That's where he had his first vision, you know, as you do. So, he got visited by the Almighty, and he was imprisoned with Pai Mārire prisoners, and their conversations with him formed his belief, his religious system. He developed what is called the Ringatū religion. Ringatū [refers to] a raised hand, so when you're Pai Mārire, you raise your hand when you're doing karakia (prayer, blessing). So, he set up that movement. As a consequence of being imprisoned, when he finally escaped from the Chatham Islands on a schooner, which they confiscated, [he] returned to Tūranganui and took revenge on those that had imprisoned him. But, it led to the British forces chasing him, and forces from my tribal area, from Ngāti Porou, also pursuing him all over the place, through the [Te] Urewera in particular. So, he had early support from Tūhoe (iwi affiliated with Te Urewera). He just kept evading them (British forces and Ngāti Porou), and then finally ended up in the King Country, where he was allowed by Ngāti Maniapoto and Tainui to take refuge in that area. Because, at that time, the King Country had a boundary that Europeans couldn't cross, so that kept him safe for a while. 

By that time it was the 1870s, and, in 1873, he had a contingent of followers in Te Kūiti, and they built the very first house (whare whakairo, carved meeting house), which is the one that became very influential on houses of that period. What makes [Te Kooti] so important, not only as a religious leader, but as an artistic innovator, was that he introduced imagery that was considered non-traditional or non-customary, or what I call rerekē. The carvers that he worked with painted the names of the ancestors on [the carvings’] chests. Not only did he do that, but he allowed them to incorporate mnemonics that allowed his followers to identify tūpuna (ancestors): for example, Māui tikitiki-a-Taranga. One of the things that he also did was reintroduce demigods from the past. Māui is a particular example; Hine-nui-te-pō is another. Māui had the sun on his shoulder. He had a rope, and then between his legs he had a waka (canoe), which related to his fishing up of the North Island (of Aotearoa). There was this liberal visual vocabulary that [Te Kooti] was responsible for introducing. 

I should say that he wasn't the originator of text. That was introduced in 1843 in another house in Gisborne under a carver called Raharuhi Rukupō, but [Te Kooti] followed that tradition and made it bolder. It was in your face, and it was on all the images, all the carvings. The other thing that he did was develop a very strong tradition of latticework structure. Within the wharenui (meeting house) context, as far as the ancestors are concerned, it tends to be on the side walls. Normally, you have carved poupou (wall pillars, posts, poles). In between the carved poupou, you normally have latticework, [which] is created by forming a lattice out of vertically organised kākaho (the stem of toetoe, a species of tall grass) and horizontally organised timber slats. The timber slats are then held together by a series of cross stitches, and, in developing the cross stitches, patterns are also created. Under [Te Kooti’s] regime, for example, he introduced figurative imagery into the latticework, whereas previously they were totally non-figurative. [He] also [introduced] text script into the latticework. Even in other areas, following his example, in that house, naturalistic imagery started to appear in the latticework. He was liberal. He was breaking all the rules, if there are rules at a particular time, or conventions associated with a particular time. He was very innovative in that. The other thing he was innovative for was introducing naturalistic painting, particularly on the front wall of the house. He's responsible for a lot of innovative developments within the whare whakairo.

So, when Para[tene] became aware of how important he was as a leader, he developed a whole series of paintings. [Like] a lot of Para’s early paintings, they came out of an engagement between modernism and customary or traditional Māori art practice and fusing the two. There's a strong reference in his work to the woven arts, in particular, and to very strong patterns like niho taniwha, which are the teeth of our mythical beings (taniwha), and also kaokao, which is a pattern about challenging; challenging order, systems, regimes or political parties, or whatever they may be. Within that is a reference to the challenges that Te Kooti was undertaking during his reign as a prophet. 

If you're familiar with Paratene Matchitt's work, he picked iconic elements and then used those elements to create sculptures. He did a series of sculptures, which were created out of corrugated iron and timber, and [he] took these symbols and created sculptural forms. You can imagine a moon-shaped structure. [He] made it out of corrugated iron with an oblique angle, so you can see the moon, and then the timber structures were inside that plane against the negative, so he played with a lot of negative and positive [space]. Those were all references to Te Kooti and his visual vocabulary. In a sense, what I'm doing is just taking them and injecting them with new life.

RJI mean, “new life”; just throw a bit of electric power in them [laughs]. You can't get any more electrifying than that. But, it revitalises [them] in a different way, because both Te Kooti and Paratene Matchitt relied on a relief sculptural tradition. In Para’s case, there was also some play on mass and void, [and] shadow casting as well. They were working with the conventions of that particular period, or Te Kooti was working in the conventions of a particular period. The other thing that Te Kooti did in a lot of his houses [was that] he inspired people to move away from using traditional latticework, and, instead of using the kākaho and the timber slats, they started using tongue and groove, for example, to replicate patterns. Those were innovations as well.

Now, I’ve lost track. What was the question? [Laughs].

RJThat's right. It brings that tradition; it brings Te Kooti with it. It brings Para's engagement with it. But, for me, the opportunity to put it up in Venice was really an opportunity to get a sense of how Italians might react to it, or how international visitors might react to it. They'll have no idea what it means, as far as looking at the symbols are concerned. But, they may say, “Well, within my culture, this is what it means. I wonder if he is thinking about that.” I like the idea of being able to take an ancient symbol and put it in a contemporary context and to see how people respond to that.

Beyond that, of course, people see things differently. You can't direct people to see things in a particular way. All you can do is really just place [the artwork] there and get people to respond to it. In the same way, they might look at the way the triangles are organised in terms of three that are presented in the normal triangular format where you have the base and then you have the apex of the triangle, and then there are two others that are inverted. In terms of the inversion, they would probably just see it as a kind of a tricky way of putting patterns together. But, it's more than that. It's a reference to the hems of kākahu (cloaks) and a particular pattern, which is called aronui. Aronui is just a series of triangles that flip as they move along the base [of the kākahu]. That whole notion is really about standardisation, conservation and repetition. It's establishing a normality, in a sense, but it depends what you put inside that triangle that changes the context of that meaning.

RJIt’s stunning. The fact that Bridget couldn't come over because she's hapū (pregnant), and she's having a baby, is even quite amazing. Not only that, Bridget's also a co-editor with another one of my students, Matariki Williams, and she sends me an email to do an edit on one of the papers that's going to appear in the next magazine. It's great to see them not only engaging in art, but also engaging in promoting art within another arena, another realm. They've done great things. I'm so proud of them. I mean, what can I say? They're doing better than I am [laughs]. 

RJYeah. But, it was incredible that this moment happened in terms of getting the invitation to come here. I didn't want to miss it for the world, so that's why, after missing out on the Creative New Zealand funding, I decided I'm just going to go anyway, and just make the most of the time that I'm here. I wanted also to come here because Brett [Graham] is here, and then, of course, not only is Brett here, but there is work by the older artists that I know, which is Fred Graham, Brett’s dad, Sandy Adsett, and Selwyn Wilson, who I met years ago when he was teaching in North Auckland, and I was a young teacher within South Auckland. So, [I’m] here to support them as well and be here in body and spirit. 

RJThat's right, but you can't help it. That's being Māori [laughs].

RJWhen you think back over the years, the number of Māori that have been part of the Venice Biennale [is] actually pretty big, percentage-wise. But, this is kind of like a climactic moment, because you have the older kaumātua (elders)—I mean, Fred [Graham] is 96 for heaven's sake, and he's still making art, and he's represented at the Venice Biennale, and his son's here at the Biennale—and then you have these young ones. You have Mataaho and their strength in terms of working collaboratively together. I've seen their developments in terms of the experimentation. This is probably the best work, I think, of their development, only because it is the one that has moved into using new technology, in terms of ratchets or ratchet strings, but letting the material itself create the patterns, the rhythms, the repetitions, which is like making a cloak, but using new medium to make the cloak. It's so versatile as a form that you can use the reflective side of the material or you can use the matte side, so what they decided this time to do is turn it over, to flip it, and it just does something completely different. I was always interested to see how they were going to navigate or negotiate the columns. I'll see that eventually, but from what I've seen, it looks like they've done a really good job. I mean, that's improvisation. Which is pretty cool. 

RJDefinitely. Pretty amazing stuff.