Customary techniques in contemporary Maori art
Extract from a discourse by Rangi Kipa, carver and ta moko artist.
I predominantly work in 3-D using customary mediums, stone, wood, bone, teeth, feathers, skin, shell and fibres as well as exploring synthetic compounds and fibres.
My artistic direction over the last ten years has primarily been concerned with participating in the revival of a number of Maori artforms that were affected by the colonial process in New Zealand. I am interested in the theoretical discourse of the nature of power relationships between Maori as a First Nations people and non-Maori. Issues of the polity of ethnicity also influence my own artistic inclinations and my own subjective positions are exposed with the use of customary Maori art and design processes as the basis of my own artistic narrative.
The revival of the making and performance of Taonga Whakatangitangi, Nga Waka Maori me na Matauranga and Ta Moko all stem from my interest in material culture and the ethnographic art of my tupuna and from my training as an artist from an early age. The majority of my work has its foundation in customary techniques.
The process of relearning customary techniques is that it allows you to understand the thought processes of our tupuna and their inter-relationship with their environment. These processes effectively are an inheritance of over a thousand years of occupation and the unbroken transfer of the mauri, they are doorways to walk with our tupuna of the past.
These are some of the artforms that are being used as catalysts for the politicisation of Maori people and the progression of Indigenous Sovereignty issues. This is a challenge for Maori to fulfil their capacity to manifest the authority to take control of their own destiny and lives! This is Mana Motu-hake or Tino Rangatira-tanga.
Their popularity is indication that Maori are challenging conventional Western norms and pursuing interests that originate from a Maori epistemological view and ideological perspective.
In the context of New Zealand politics today, Maori art is the metaphorical narrative of Mana Motuhake, the Maori voice/comment is in the art.
Rangi Kipa