Te Hı¯koi Toi: Walking through theweb
Arihia Latham finds herself on the edge of the universe on the Wellington Waterfront.
On one of the concrete plaques along the Wellington waterfront’s Writers’ Walk, there’s a line from Bill Manhire I stumble upon that sums up for me two nearby exhibitions: ‘‘I live at the edge of the universe like everybody else’’. Star Gossage from Pa¯kiri Beach and Chiharu Shiota from Japan ask us to reflect on all that is felt, and therefore intangible, on what has been, and to dreamwhat could be.
The new year has been a funny thing this time around. I’ve felt a caution in people’s hopes and well wishes. We’re living on the edge, for sure. I saw in the last new year on Paeka¯ka¯riki beach looking at the strange orange haze the rampant fires in Australia were causing. Right now, I am up north of Auckland on Pa¯kiri beach. It’s expansive and wild. Gold lit hues are almost absorbing me, and in this I have a deeper understanding of Star Gossage (Nga¯tiWai, Nga¯ti Ruanui) and the way she paints from this place, her turangawaewae.
In her survey exhibition He Tangata The People at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery I couldn’t stop looking at the first painting, ‘Hine Aotea’. Gossage describes it as a self-portrait, of awoman made of mud, searching for the early morning light. This description felt known to me: as awoman, as amother, as someone trying to survive this tumultuous time.
It speaks to the story of Hineahuone, the first woman made of clay, and Hinetı¯tama her daughter of the dawn. It’s a fitting beginning for the journey into Star’s portraits. The floor-to-ceiling hung collection ‘Pah Paintings’ are the most mesmerising for me. They made me want to sit with my tı¯puna at dusk, listen to the trees whisper stories and let the ocean wash them away.
‘‘People are bound by wairua, whenua, whakapapa andwha¯nau – spirit, land, ancestry and family,’’ Gossage writes. ‘‘I paint feelings, I paint the wairua of people and places.’’
Gossage also has work at Page Galleries. These recent works Noho Mai ki te Ahau/ Sit with Me feel less complex: spring landscape and floral studies with three softlit portraits. Beautiful, yet it requires less to tear oneself away.
Walking along the edge of our city, into Te Papa and the encompassing universe of Chiharu Shiota’s giant installation The web of time is nothing short of surreal. With incredible detail, knotted wool explodes across the room like a spider web, or perhaps your Nana has gone wild. A meshed tunnel invites us in. Numbers hang in the web of twine, like spider-wrapped prey with the spooky promise to me that we will never escape time. ‘‘I want the viewer to reflect on their inner self,’’ Shiota writes, ‘‘on their life – past, present and future...’’
While the web feels ethereal the numbers are literal and my initial reaction to them wasn’t favourable. Then, as we wandered and found our birthdays amongst the digits, it felt like an intention of the work became clearer: to unlock memories of ourselves and our whakapapa through numbers of importance to us and history. With this awareness as Iwalked through the web I started to see each number almost as a portal of possibility. I liked that I could choose to stand above it all, god-like and look down on the neural patterning of numerology. It was a big brain moment.
Star Gossage had earthed me, covered me in soil and golden sand and rolled me through red pohutukawa stamens to the ocean. My eyes filled with her faces and the wairua of her paintings raised my skin in a shiver.
Chiharu Shiota pulled me into the universe, a starscape made of time, of milliseconds. Her installation was a heady experience of memories, encouraging me to follow pathways of lines with knots like constellations of experiences.
The pair of them have taken me to Bill Manhire’s edge of the universe, connecting me with everyone else that perches here too. Waiting to see what 2021 will bring.