Show puts focus on art of ta¯ moko
Images show how old photos took life out of culture
The Puaki exhibition was opened with a po¯whiri and blessings at the Ma¯ puna Gallery recently at Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom in Foxton. Photographer and artist Michael Bradley described the wet plate photographic method used by European settlers in the 1850s which served to erase the classic ta¯ moko.
Michael said, “The problem being, when the wet plate photographic technique used to take photographs of tattoos, they barely showed up at all in the images. And as the years went by, this proved true in real life as well.
“The ancient art of ta¯ moko was increasingly suppressed as Ma¯ori were assimilated into the colonial world. I wanted to illustrate this process by taking wet-plate photographs of people with ta¯ moko, as well as modern digital images.
“Then by displaying them side by side, this gives an impression of the beauty of ta¯ moko, and how Ma¯ori cultural identity was lost with the antique photographic cameras from colonial settlers,” Bradley said.
The wet-plate technique Michael used gives one photo an old time faded black and white look, which then sits side-by-side in stark contrast with a modern and sharply digital photograph.
Michael grew up in Hamilton and was educated at Hamilton Boys High. After working for a while, he decided to travel overseas and went on an OE and travelled around Europe. Upon returning to New Zealand Michael had the idea of presenting the resurgence of ta¯ moko in wetplate and digital form. Michael spent four years mastering the complex art of wet plate photography, and studied under New Zealand’s “Godfather of wet plate” Brian Scadden, in his Wellington studio.
After spending time with people he knew and met from iwi around New Zealand and hours of ko¯ rero on what he wanted to achieve, using ta¯ moko as his subject, his portaits’ grew. From this Puaki was established. The exhibition title Puaki means ‘to Come forth, show itself, open out, emerge, reveal, and to give testimony’.
In Ma¯ori culture, it’s believed, everyone has a ta¯ moko under the skin, which is just waiting to be revealed.
Puaki is made up of 23 photographs of people who use ta¯ moko today. This exhibition includes images of Tracey Robinson who lives in Foxton, songwriter Rob Ruha, former Ma¯ori Party candidate Rangi McLean, academic Te Kahautu Maxwell, and the late Nga¯ puhi elder Kingi Taurua. Puaki is open to the public during normal library hours in the Ma¯puna Gallery, Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom Foxton until Sunday, April 18.