FIONA PARDINGTONIt was a suggestion from Megan. I love working with her, so I didn't really think twice about it. I trust her curatorial strength. It's a very comfortable thing for me, working with her. She is really a joy to listen to and every time I work with her, I learn a lot. I've got mad respect for her.

The work was made quite a long time ago now, but Megan wanted to show the photograph of Heroua in particular, alongside Takatāhara and Piūraki. In the past nobody's been particularly interested in Heroua, because of her visage and her demeanour, and the cast is kind of unsettling.

The casts were made by the phrenologist Pierre-Marie Dumoutier and are kept at the Musée de L’Homme in Paris. It’s good to have Heroua here. It's said that she is the wife of one of the ariki (paramount chief, high chief), but we don't know much about her at all. Nobody's found her yet, though it would be nice to have a genealogist do an extended search for her.

My editor for the publication of the initial exhibition of the series, her husband is a specialist, and he suggested that she may have had a goitre. Her neck and one side of her face looks to be swollen. But she also has traditional cuts of mourning on her face, which I think is something that Megan felt quite connected to and emotional about.

FPMegan just said to me that she wanted to work with our tūpuna (ancestors), three of them. I was excited because she was the one that initiated the whole idea of not neglecting Heroua as she has been. I suppose that's because Megan intimately understands the feelings that we have as an iwi (extended kinship group, tribe, nation, people) and as people that are connected to our ariki, and why we would want to look past the fact that they were casts made by a phrenologist. 

A lot of people might turn their noses up at that, but I refuse to corral esteemed tūpuna, or have them eclipsed by the fact that their visages are brought forward by men involved in a pseudoscience. That's in the past. I don't see why they should be continuously recolonised by anybody. I'd challenge anybody to explain to me why we should keep them in this kind of eternal victimhood. They're never victims. You don't have to agree with the process of phrenology. But it's a fact that it was there and it's given us—for all the completely different reasons and different outcomes than any of those people back then could have understood—a portal into their touchstones and to the reality of those esteemed chiefs and that woman, Heroua.

Dumont D’Urville, a cartographer and botanist, took the phrenologist on board on his voyage to Aotearoa because It was the most precise way of capturing information on humans. It was pre-photography. Everybody knows that now. The way the process was justified historically, to racially categorise humanity—that's bullshit. I'm not going to let our tūpuna be enlisted or be captured by that. I don't want other people pushing them back into that state either. It seems short-sighted.

FPWell, yes, but I don't really see it as an appropriation, but rather a kind of revelation. To me, it's never not existed, that relationship. It’s just a matter of revealing it, bringing it to light. Who are you looking at? We're looking at our esteemed relatives. That's what's important.

That's what Tahu Potiki (Ngāi Tahu leader) told me. He was the person that told me that the casts existed. This was a long time ago when we were at a wānanga (seminar, conference, forum) in Wanaka. He set me on the trail, and he said, “We need to discover our people and bring them back home.” So that's what I've done. If it's right by our elders, and it's right for family, and right for those that are within the iwi, then it's right. That relationship has never not existed. I'm not going to have them endlessly recaptured by this notion of phrenology. It's just trivial in relationship to the precious connections with the ancestors.

FPNo, I've always just transited through on the way to Europe, mostly to France. This is a unique opportunity, and also just to be rubbing shoulders with some artists I really respect. 

FPWell, for instance, I've spent some time talking to my taxi drivers here, and I've talked to them about family and the significance of their relationships with their wives, because they'll often say, “Where's your husband? Why aren't you travelling with him?” We like to discuss the dynamic that you're looked after very well by your husband and I go, “Yes, I'm really blessed because he looks after me, I look after him. It's an awesome relationship.” That's a functioning dynamic that they really understand.

Then they'll ask you about your children. A lot of the drivers might be from India or Pakistan and they talk about their mothers. I'm saying, “I bet your mum misses you,” and they say, “Yes, and we send money back every month.” And I'd say, “Isn't that an awesome thing that you're able to do that, because I love looking after my family. It makes me feel great.” For me, that's all I need to do. That whole idea of the connection of family and their historical understanding of their bloodlines, that larger community; here, I suppose that's what I feel most strongly, and that relates to me, to our ancestors, who were very important tribal members. That's how I'm reading it, just from a quotidian, day-to-day feeling while I'm here, as the artist that made that work.

FPThere are a lot of other things that have been said and that you could say about my work, but for me, I want that relationship to keep evolving and for me to continue to understand it as I get older. As the work is further and further in my past, I want to see how it's functioned, its relevance, how it'll blossom out in different communities. In Sharjah, it makes a lot of sense. As I said, because the phrenology is effortlessly eclipsed by the relevance of identity, bloodline and respect. 

FPMy response would probably be the same as everyone else’s. If you think about your aspirations as a young artist, as a student, it’s a great honour. To rub shoulders with so many great artists, that's just a joy. I’ve heard and seen some really cool things and opportunities that are available to other artists and curators here, and I'm just really happy to see it.

It’s not just about wishing that something good is going to happen for yourself, but really celebrating the success of others. That's how I think about its importance. You're only going to have it function in a healthy manner, as an artist that's exhibiting internationally, if you are really happy for other people's successes.

FPYes. I'd just like to see some kids at biennales, too. When I was in Venice recently, there were all these very little kids, beautifully dressed, holding hands in a row. They were ushered along by their teachers and they had their little backpacks on. It reminded me a lot about when I was that little, when you used to sit on the mat and you used to hold hands to go places, in school and on holiday trips.

It became really obvious to me that one of the most important things for my upcoming exhibition in Venice and the people I'm working with is that we provide information for children. We're working with Hana O’Regan, my cousin, who is an esteemed Ngāi Tahu language expert. I've talked to her about providing kete (baskets, kits) for the children over there, and we have to find out more about the way that they learn and about what kind of information will be functional, relevant and teachable for them. 

When I went to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, all these tiny little kids were sitting cross-legged in front of Max Ernst paintings. I'm just going, “Oh my god, this is so good. I mean, I can't see the work properly, but I'm so glad the children are there.” I think that's really important for biennales and large exhibitions. Creativity is the lifeblood that children need to be—I won’t say bathed in, because that’s kind of vampiric, but you know what I mean. It has to be there from the beginning, because it certainly was for me as a child. That's where everything started, with my grandmother taking me to museums and art galleries, and nothing’s changed. That's why I want the opportunity to just share freely with children.

FPWe have that opportunity to provide for children. It’s really for the biggest kind of exhibition, so the information that we funnel them is going to be language-based and cultural. But you also want something that children are going to respond to, and so for me that's a challenge. It's a welcome challenge, and a pleasure.

Of course, you can't have any of that unless I've got the exhibition concept in the first place. But because we are a community—we're generations, we're a community—I'm not stepping outside my normal practice. They’re not asking me to be somebody different to what I normally would be. And I've got a great team. As I said, I'm working with Hana O’Regan and we're very close. She's provided mōteatea (chants) here in Sharjah and has worked with me in the past. I'm really blessed to have her. I'm also working with Andrew Paul Wood, so I've got that really nice balance going on there.

FPWe're looking at how I can bring an Italian acknowledgement into the exhibition, particularly through colour: the Venetian reds and the colours of the churches, the colours of the bricks. The colours of the marble. Colours of the sky and sea. The difference over the passage of the day and evening, that kind of crepuscular light. For me, it's cool, because I grew up on water and boats. I love living on the water.

I’m also interested in rock art. I'd like Gerard O’Regan to be involved too, because he's the rock art king. He's the guy that's in charge of that waka (canoe, vehicle). I want to go with him, and with Hana and with Neil Pardington, and sample the colours of the rock art. I've found a stream up in Earthquake Road, close to where I live in Canterbury, Aotearoa, where you can find a lot of the pigments that are identical to the ones that are on the rocks not far away from that stream. It’ll be another wonderful opportunity to experience being there with my collaborators and sampling the colours. How I'm going to get them involved with responding to the Venetian colours is another thing. I'd quite like to take them over there to do that, because that's quite an important thing to weave those two physical experiences.

I was also looking at their velvet. I went to one of the big velvet makers, one of the last ones that is still operating out of Venice. I’d like to use some of the velvet in the background. I'm just waiting for the funding to turn up so I can start producing. It costs around $1500 NZD a metre! Felicity Milburn, one of the curators at Christchurch Art Gallery who is organising the New Zealand Pavilion together with their Pouarataki Curator Māori, Chloe Cull, had a fantastic dream that the bridges of Venice were swathed in velvet. So I thought, “Ooh, that's a tohu (sign). Thanks, Felicity!”

FPWhen Christchurch Art Gallery was approached by Creative New Zealand to lead the Pavilion, they wanted to work with me. I felt that it's a good partnership. Blair Jackson, the Diector of Christchurch Art Gallery, is a dream to work with. Ngāi Tahu are really behind us. We've got great connections there with family, so it's pretty darn exciting. I wasn't expecting it.