Artist has Te Maori guiding her work

Donna Tupaea with Kaiarahi, which will be displayed at the Mangere Arts Centre. Photo / Dean Purcell

Artist Donna Tupaea was a 15-year-old guide when Te Maori - the ground-breaking international exhibition - returned to the Auckland City Art Gallery in the late 1980s.

In 1984, the largest travelling collection of whakairo, or carved taonga, opened at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two years later, after touring the US it returned home.

School students were rostered on to guide people around Te Maori, which is credited with raising the profile of indigenous art globally and changing how museums interacted with Maori.

Ms Tupaea's piece Kaiarahi (guide) is part of a Mangere exhibition, Kawakawa, which opened last night to mark the anniversary.

Working at Te Maori's exhibition was one of her formative experiences, Ms Tupaea said.

"Our taonga would be behind painted white lines, people had to stand behind those lines, and we'd stand inside them and give our little speech about what they were about, where they were from.

"You'd get kaumatua and kuia who didn't care about the lines and they'd come up to them and mihi [speak] to them, hongi them. I just remember it being really, really moving.

"Experiencing all of that had a huge impact on me becoming an artist, and for me it was an opportunity to connect with these taonga as a young person."

Seeing a change in thinking around how art was appreciated in an institution was special, she said.

"We were keeping these things warm, and for me it was about not seeing taonga as just an artefact but something that had a life force and connected us to our tipuna."

Kawakawa is curated by Nigel Borell. The idea behind it was for invited contemporary artists to comment on what the impact of Te Maori was, he said.

Other pieces include digital pictures of the Statue of Liberty wearing a tiki and holding Uenuku, a major carving, instead of her usual torch.

Sculptors, photographers, jewellers, painters and installation artists are part of the exhibition.

EXHIBITION

Kawakawa: 12 Responses to the 25th Anniversary of Te Maori is on until September 26 at the Mangere Arts Centre at 93 Bader Drive.