Art history
A New Zealand documentary series fronted by Dame Anne Salmond looks at items of historical and cultural significance. Sarah Nealon reports.
A new Maori TV series looks at our shared past.
Artist and activist Tama Iti, singer Hinewehi Mohi and members of showband the Modern M ori Quartet feature in a new local documentary series called Artefact.
The six-part show, screening on M ori Television, explores stories, issues and themes connected to specific taonga or treasures.
Presented by Dame Anne Salmond, a Distinguished Professor of M ori Studies, Artefact was filmed in New Zealand and overseas.
When asked how she would describe the series, Dame Anne says: “It’s an exploration for our shared history through iconic objects, ones which enable us to tell fantastic stories about what’s happened in the past in New Zealand but also what’s happening right now and what may happen in the future.”
Topics covered in the documentary include travel, diplomacy, trade, music and fashion.
One episode looks at how clothes are related to expression and identity. Here Dame Anne meets relatives of the long-serving Labour MP Whet Tirak tene-Sullivan, the first female Maori cabinet minister who was known for her sense of cultural style. “She had this flair for fashion and she used very bold motifs in her things (outfits) that she wore to parliament and various other places when she was making statements about M ori issues,” says Dame Anne. In the same episode, Dame Anne chats to activist and artist Tama Iti at his Taneatua art studio. “When he was on trial for terrorism, he would dress every day to go to court,” says Dame Anne. “The costumes that he wore were all very symbolic and they had great power in the things he was seeking to convey. “So when we had the shoot, we arrived at the studio and he actually had a rack full of these costumes. It was extraordinary. “He was talking about protest as theatre in part but why he wore particular garments to convey messages not just to the courtroom but to the world because he was aware that the terrorism trial was being filmed.”