The focus of this thesis is to visually show the significance and relationship between the use of natural materials, and geometric patterns used in Māori weaving. The patterns will reflect indigenous episteme of artistic and tacit knowledge. These patterns are significant to the Māori worldview of kaitiakitanga (stewardship of knowledge), which is cognisant in the ontology of Māori weaving. These patterns are significant forms of Māori cultural symbols that reflect elements of nature, evolution of time and space. The focus is to show how natural materials can be utilised in an art form that embraces bicultural activity, as a reference to customary and new age methods of thinking and practice. This leads to self-enquiry and our own responsibilities, only to ask ourselves; What are the guiding principles within art and design, that upholds the core values of Mātauranga Māori? (Māori epistemological thinking). The concept of this thesis is to define the cultural significance of kaitiakitanga (stewardship), through the preservation of Mātauranga Māori and practice as weavers and artists. This concept challenges our own understanding of what we know and what we don’t know about the relationships between people, place, environment and use. The methods and processes used for this work will be based on customary practices and methods, using native materials, endemic to New Zealand. These materials will be harvested at different time periods. The methodologies used in this project, is a product of intrinsic knowledge and testing new boundaries, through researching more specific detail about varieties of harakeke (New Zealand flax) cultivars, testing the flexibility, functionality and durability of materials. This will challenge the test, of making sure that the methods used will be significantly practiced throughout the processes involved in the making of artistic pieces of work, in accordance to tikanga (protocols). The use of native materials enhances cultural values of kaitiakitanga as a metaphor, which asserts sustainability of Māori epistemological notions of practice and meaning.This also applies to the visual language of Māori. The concept of visual language embraces metaphoric meanings and understanding, which relates to our co-existence with the earth, animals and the elements. All these elements of nature are contained within symbolic traditional patterns. Some of these patterns have derived from phenomena of thought structure, historical events and our co-existence through our connectedness to the land, waters, oceans, sky and universe. How can Māori forms of art be embraced and imbued, in modern society, that signifies place, belonging and cultural enhancement?

The focus of this thesis is to visually show the significance and relationship between the use of natural materials, and geometric patterns used in Māori weaving. The patterns will reflect indigenous episteme of artistic and tacit knowledge. These patterns are significant to the Māori worldview of kaitiakitanga (stewardship of knowledge), which is cognisant in the ontology of Māori weaving. These patterns are significant forms of Māori cultural symbols that reflect elements of nature, evolution of time and space. The focus is to show how natural materials can be utilised in an art form that embraces bicultural activity, as a reference to customary and new age methods of thinking and practice. This leads to self-enquiry and our own responsibilities, only to ask ourselves; What are the guiding principles within art and design, that upholds the core values of Mātauranga Māori? (Māori epistemological thinking). The concept of this thesis is to define the cultural significance of kaitiakitanga (stewardship), through the preservation of Mātauranga Māori and practice as weavers and artists. This concept challenges our own understanding of what we know and what we don’t know about the relationships between people, place, environment and use. The methods and processes used for this work will be based on customary practices and methods, using native materials, endemic to New Zealand. These materials will be harvested at different time periods. The methodologies used in this project, is a product of intrinsic knowledge and testing new boundaries, through researching more specific detail about varieties of harakeke (New Zealand flax) cultivars, testing the flexibility, functionality and durability of materials. This will challenge the test, of making sure that the methods used will be significantly practiced throughout the processes involved in the making of artistic pieces of work, in accordance to tikanga (protocols). The use of native materials enhances cultural values of kaitiakitanga as a metaphor, which asserts sustainability of Māori epistemological notions of practice and meaning.This also applies to the visual language of Māori. The concept of visual language embraces metaphoric meanings and understanding, which relates to our co-existence with the earth, animals and the elements. All these elements of nature are contained within symbolic traditional patterns. Some of these patterns have derived from phenomena of thought structure, historical events and our co-existence through our connectedness to the land, waters, oceans, sky and universe. How can Māori forms of art be embraced and imbued, in modern society, that signifies place, belonging and cultural enhancement?

A whakapapa of the marae Whakapapa, a Maori word, is often abstracted to the English language as the word genealogy. Whakapapa however has a more subtle and comprehensive meaning in Maori. In that language it has complex connotations of genealogical lines, yes, but also the history of the people involved and perhaps most importantly, the inter-relationships between those people. Degrees of consanguinity are all important when establishing relationships within Te Ao Maori - the Maori world. Marae, the basis of this thesis, is another Maori word. A marae, at its simplest, might be referred to as an agglomeration of separated, functional buildings on an area of reserved land, usually deemed to be sacral to some extent. Marae have an ancient history both in New Zealand Maori culture, but really originating at least in part, in the older cultures from which our Maori culture was eventually derived, from other, earlier settled, Pacific Islands. This thesis then is a genealogy, a sort of cultural history of marae, but is based on the idea and Maori sense of the whakapapa and so partakes of the nuances involved. It is these additional complexities that are referred to by the use of the word whakapapa in the title of this thesis. This thesis investigates the lineage of the marae, tracing it back to legendary roots, but it also examines the relationships between the components of the marae and also the place the marae has established within Maori (and other) communities. Beyond the historical forms of the marae that this thesis investigates are the other aspects that delineate what a marae really is. It is not simply a group of buildings at all, although this is a common non-Maori understanding of its disposition. A marae is a tapu or sacred space, and within or nearby that space are buildings whose form, function and meaning have only come to their present conjunction in (written) historic times. What makes the marae is the combination of the people and the ritual that is involved on a marae, the marae space and lastly, the physical buildings. The buildings, particularly carved houses, have additional meaning that they lend to the thread of the story. They themselves represent the whakapapa of the marae, and specifically of the hapu (or sub-tribe) who inhabit that marae. They do this by direct representation, but also by analogy and by spiritual means that are little dealt with in most literature. Ancestors in Te Ao Maori are deemed to exist within the very fabric of the building and have a renewed or continuing existence that is created in the first instance by a melange of ritual and belief. This thesis discusses both the usage of ritual to create such physical interjacence, utilised in modern times within whare (houses), and the continued use of regular ritual on marae for human functions. It is only together that a complete modern marae is created. With any of these elements missing the marae form is truncated or lessened and diminished in some ways. So, marae which have been recreated in preserved forms, such as those in museums, are discussed at length in this thesis, by contrast with marae in regular usage for 'traditional' purposes. In essence then, this is an investigation of the marae, but in terms, manners and ways, which have not always been fully or comprehensively dealt with before.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-136). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Située au croisement de plusieurs disciplines – anthropologie, sociologie, histoire de l’art,études féministes et sur le genre – cette thèse s’intéresse aux oeuvres, aux pratiques, aux parcours et aux discours des femmes artistes maori néo-zélandaises s’inscrivant dans le champ de l’art contemporain et vivant en milieu urbain. Ces artistes sont à l’origine de revendications politiques et d’affirmations identitaires singulières du fait de leurs multiples appartenances : leurs productions recèlent des références simultanées à leurs histoires individuelles, à leur statut de membres d’une minorité autochtone et d’une tribu, à leur condition de femmes et de citoyennes au sein de la nation néo-zélandaise.L’analyse des données obtenues après avoir mené une enquête de terrain d’un an en Nouvelle-Zélande en 2012-2013, des recherches complémentaires sur Internet et des échanges avec les artistes au retour du terrain permet de montrer comment ces dernières s’inscrivent dans le mouvement actuel d’affirmation maori. En effet, suite à la colonisation britannique du XIX e siècle, les Maori luttent toujours pour affirmer leurs droits. Dans ce contexte, l’art est utilisé par certaines femmes comme un puissant moyen de contestation et de promotion d’un changement social visant à la reconnaissance du mana wahine (pouvoir, prestige féminin). Ce travail révèle également que la pratique artistique leur offre l’opportunité de réaffirmer les liens les unissant au monde maori tout en leur permettant d’accéder à une certaine autonomisation et émancipation. Elles développent des stratégies originales pour affirmer leur créativité sans transgresser des règles toujours importantes pour les Maori. / At the intersection of several disciplines – anthropology, sociology, art history, and feminist and gender studies, this thesis deals with the works, practices, careers and discourses of New Zealand Maori women artists active in the field of contemporary art and living in an urban environment. Due to their many forms of belonging, these artists are behind specific political demands and identity affirmations: their work contains simultaneous references to the individual histories, their status as members of an indigenous minority and a tribe, and their condition as women and citizens of the New Zealand nation. The analysis of the data obtained after a fieldwork investigation in New Zealand carried out over a year from 2012 to 2013, of complementary research on the Internet and exchanges with artists when back from the field makes it possible to show how these artists are part of today's Maori assertion movement. For since British colonization in the 19th century, the Maori have continued to assert their rights. In this context, some women use art as a powerful means of protest and of promoting social change aimed at the recognition of mana wahine (women's power or prestige). This work also reveals that their artistic practice affords them the opportunity to reassert the ties linking them to the Maori world while at the same time enabling them to attain a certain empowerment and emancipation. They develop original strategies for asserting their creativity without transgressing the rules which remain important for the Maori people.

Prior to the 1950s, visual culture within tribal environments could be separated into customary and non-customary. In the early 19th century, customary visual culture maintained visual correspondence with prior painted and carved models of the pre-contact period. In the latter part of the 19th century, non-customary painted and carved imagery inspired by European naturalism informed tribal visual culture. This accommodation of European imagery and practice was trans-cultural in its translation to tribal environments. In the 1960s, an innovative trans-customary art form evolved outside tribal environments, fusing customary visual culture and modernism. This trans-customary art form, which maintained visual empathy with customary form of the 19th century, was introduced into the tribal environment, initially, in a painted mural in 1973, and subsequently in a multimedia mural in 1975. In 1989 and 1990, this trans-customary Maori art practice informed the art of the Taharora Project at Mihikoinga marae in Ohineakai. In this Project, the 1970s transcustomary Maori art precedents were extended with non-customary form and practice. The thesis employs tataitanga kaupapa toi as a paradigm for Maori cultural relativity and relevance en-framing form, content and genealogy. Annexed to this paradigm are a range of methods: a tataitanga reo method for interpreting Maori language texts; a tataitanga korero method, conjoining a kaupapa Maori and an iconographic approach, for interpreting meaning in tribal visual culture, and a tataitanga whakairo method, incorporating stylistic analysis as formal sequence, semiology and intrinsic perception, for analysing a continuum of stylistic development from the Rawheoro School of carving to the Taharora Project. The Taharora Project constitutes the case study where tribal visual culture and contemporary art within tribal environments are contextualised in a trans-cultural continuum. The critical question that underpins this thesis is how do form, content and genealogy contribute to art that resonates with Maori? The thesis concludes that trans-cultural practice in contemporary art can resonate with Maori if the art maintains visual correspondence or visual empathy with customary tribal form. In their absence, cultural resonance can be achieved through a grounding of the content, informing the art, in a paradigm of Maori cultural relativity and relevance, a tataitanga kaupapa toi. The genealogy of the artist is a further determinant for resonance.