Since 1984: He aha te ahurea-rua?

Since 1984: He aha te ahurea-rua? brings together artists from the ‘kohunga reo generation’ – 30 years on. Acknowledging events of the 80s (including the monumental impact of the internationally touring exhibition Te Māori) that lead to prioritisation of mātauranga Māori within New Zealand education systems, it asks: How has the institutionalisation of biculturalism informed and affected Māori artists emerging from such systems? The exhibition includes a range of practices that engage with the ambitions and complications …of the term ‘biculturalism’; the artwork and positions advocated for are as diverse and wide ranging as the artists’ backgrounds and levels of affiliation.

Taking its cue from one of the works in the exhibition, Elisapeta Heta’s Noho Symposium, the show pivots on the practice of wānanga. Here wānanga is understood through the application and understanding of tikanga both in its formal and functional role within the New Zealand education system and conceptually: as an open discussion to arrive at shared understanding. Heta’s work will provide the occasion for a full weekend of korero among invited participants.

Waikare Komene, Johnson Witehira, Tanya Ruka, Rik Wilson, Elisapeta Heta, Sarah Hudson, Will Ngakuru, Ammon Ngakuru, Rangituhia Hollis, Jeremy Leatinu’u. Curated by Martin Awa Clarke Langdon

17 April – 22 May

St Paul St Gallery, St Paul St, Auckland