WHAKARONGO!

The exhibition Whītiki, Mātike, Whakatika! opened at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space on Sunday 4 February 2024, 55 days after Te Waka Hourua took action in Te Papa Tongarewa. Whether you consider this action a correction or a crime, those involved in the process have made abundantly clear that it was a last resort after years of attempting to reason with Te Papa executives. What can you do when you are not being listened to? Emails, meetings, and sit-ins can only get you so far. What better way to ensure that you will be heard than to transform the very language at the centre of the issue?

After lacklustre conversations and a heavily redacted OIA response, Te Waka Hourua issued a wero to Te Papa. This challenge has reverberated around Aotearoa. It was felt by DJCS, director at Enjoy, who made the quick decision to partner with Te Waka Hourua and 5ever books in order to sell A3 redacted Treaty posters and raise funds for the groups legal fees. It was felt by me, curator at Enjoy, when contemplating my place in the GLAM sector. Indigenous critic David Garneau asserts that “Indigenous artists and curators must engage in collective, critical reflection on ourselves, works and processes”¹ if we want our mahi to be “more than a tributary to mainstream art.”² In this cultural climate, it is imperative that those working within art institutions recognise our power.

Whakarongo!
Ki te reo Māori e karanga nei 
Whakarongo!

                                                          Listen!
                                                          To the Maori language which is saying
                                                          Listen!

Enjoy is small in size and staff. Supported by a young, Māori majority board, we are afforded the freedom to shape programming without interference. As we are a team of two in a gallery with relatively fast exhibition changeovers, we were able to meet with representatives from Te Waka Hourua and pull Whītiki, Mātike, Whakatika! together in a tight timeframe. The conceptualisation and installation of this exhibition was easygoing. Together with members of Te Waka Hourua, we installed the exhibition the evening before it opened. Such spontaneity is not the norm in many galleries, but under the leadership of our director has become standard at Enjoy. 

Suspended from the ceiling at the centre of the gallery were back to back banners reading ‘Kōrero Pono Mai / Tell The Truth’, along our 7.6m East wall hung another banner stating ‘Colonisation=Exploitation=Climate Catastrophe’ (under which manuhiri added their own versions of a redacted treaty), letters from inmates in Te Wehi Ratana’s wing at Rimutaka prison and drafts of the group’s various redactions lined the West walls, while their hand drawn plans for the protest and Haimana’s boots and gloves occupied the space. Other aspects of the exhibition include infographics explaining the differences in the English and Māori texts of the Treaty, information on He Whakaputanga, film screenings, screen printing workshops and whakawhanaungatanga. During the two days that Whītiki, Mātike, Whakatika! was open, I saw more manuhiri Māori in our space than ever before. Institutions like Enjoy and Te Papa have the power to affirm what the wider public thinks of as ‘art’. In this way, Enjoy has affirmed Te Waka Hourua as artists and their redacted Treaty as an artwork by our unabashed endorsement of their action and ongoing support of the group.

It is interesting to note wider responses as to what constitutes art. When Enjoy helped to sell the redacted Treaty posters, the reaction was overwhelming. People want a memento of this pivotal point in time and they want to display it in their homes as a work of art. In documents released through a recent Te Papa OIA, various in house responses to the protest are available to peruse. Te Papa’s Manager Health and Safety calls Te Waka Hourua “vandals”³ and seems to mock their statement about the redacted Treaty display becoming a work of art. Another staff member, this time in the Tours department, finds it “Hilarious!”⁴ that a member of the public describes the new and improved panel as “some of the best art of our day.”⁵ Elsewhere in the art world, Mark Amery invited Cally O’Neill to discuss the protest on his RNZ show Culture 101 and art historian Christina Barton wrote about the action in her ArtNow roundup of 2023. My own opinion is that Signs of a Nation as a whole is boring and outdated, whereas the panel has been transformed from an average wall text into this country’s most exciting work of art. Jarita Greyeyes, Heather Igloliorte, Jamie Issac and Julie Nagam believe that Indigenous artists and curators must “persist as agents of change, unpacking notions of Indigenization and decolonization and bringing a necessary instability into museum structures.”⁶ Reading the frantic emails, text messages and staff memos at Te Papa, I think it's safe to say that Te Waka Hourua have gifted the museum an invigorating instability.

Tirohia!
Ngā tikanga tapu a ngā tīpuna 
Kapohia!

                                                       Look!
                                                      The sacred customs of our ancestors
                                                      Reach out!

I was in Ōtautahi on December 11 2023. After a long day spent wandering the city, I paused to read notifications that had piled up and saw the news of an incident at Te Papa. The next day, I travelled to Kaikōura to attend my first Kāhui Kaitiaki hui at Takahanga marae. Kahui Kaitiaki is a network for Māori working in museums, art galleries, archives and libraries throughout Aotearoa. Organised by the National Services Te Paerangi—a team within Te Papa—the protest at the museum was naturally the main topic of conversation among us. At our hui, we rehearsed the well-known waiata “Whakarongo!” composed by Ngoi Pēwhairangi. Though this waiata is about the importance of encouraging te reo Māori revitalisation, lately I've been interpreting it as a demand. For decades Te Papa has failed to listen to Māori regarding the Signs of a Nation exhibition. Te Waka Hourua has forced them to finally whakarongo!

He kupu tuku iho mō tēnei reanga
Whakarongo! 

             Let these words be a commandment to this generation
             Listen!