Recently I’ve been…

Folk Nationalism and other stories, a new reader published on the occasion of Ayesha's exhibition at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi 1 July–15 October 2023. The reader reflects on the diverse and contradictory meanings of the concept of Folk Nationalism and presents new writing by authors from across Aotearoa who have been invited by Green to respond to her work and the ideas and themes they contain.

I contributed the essay Firmly rooted in place: the rise of rock art in contemporary toi Māori praxis

My first outdoor earth-pigment work was commissioned by curator Mel Tangaere Baldwin for Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival.

On YouTube, Dr Aroha Yates Smith shares a waiata she wrote about her research and connection with Parawhenuamea. It sings of whakapapa, genealogical geologies, about freshwater springing forth from mountainous elemental parents, bringing life, carrying rocks, and extending the land. I’ve watched that video over and over – it was the inspiration for this sculpture.

This work is an ode to Parawhenuamea, the Māori ancestor of earthly water. The orange forms referencing her ability to shift and allocate life-giving iron particles through the water, into the land, into the plants, into our bodies, into our blood.

Reconnect (2023)
HD Video, colour, sound, 10min
Cinematography by Rachel Anson
Music by Kahu Kutia and Sylvan Spring

I've been practicing gestures of ceremony to reconnect the geological genealogies.

Ko Parawhenuamea ko au
Ko Ukurangi ko au
Ko Rakahore ko au

The benchmark for contemporary Māori art is often set at ‘perfect’. Decades of slick and immaculately executed works forged a pathway for an ongoing lineage of Māori artists to take their place in the art world. Alongside this refined aesthetic is also an almost overbearing tone of seriousness. The seriousness denotes respect, it speaks of grappling with the impacts of colonisation, it shows the importance of our customary practices and sets the expectation to the audience for a reciprocal tone of solemnity.

This lecture will lay down a challenge for frivolity to be taken seriously.

Turumeke Harrington and Grace Ryder, with Sarah Hudson, Saskia Leek, Kristen Leek and Greta Menzines.

This exhibition is created for each other, excuse our selfishness. We offer each other conditions to work that avoid and deter the ridiculous and indefensible aspects of “normal” practice. This has been an extended period of trust and experimentation, resulting in an exhibition that cradles and nurtures the others’ ambitions, at ties quite literally”

-Grace Ryder

My contribution to the exhibition was ‘Reunion’ a Ngāti Pūkeko stained piece of canvas, holding a Ngāti Maru ki Hauraki piece of earth.

I was invited to speak at the international earth pigment symposium, which was held online for the first time in June. There is a vibrant community of artists, academics, and alchemists that work with the land in reciprocal, respectful ways.

The presentation I did was an introduction of how Kauae Raro Research Collective came to be and some of the reasons why I published Mana Whenua in 2020.

The above image shows a variety of earth colours from my personal archive, collected from around Te Waiariki.

Emerging discussions on art, labour and collaboration in Aotearoa

As needed, as possible is a digital and print publication that emerges from thinking, talking and making around art, labour and life in contemporary Aotearoa. Initially prompted by a series of questions we asked ourselves around the role Enjoy—and the contemporary art space more generally—plays within a broader arts ecology and society, this publication looks outward, building upon conversations with friends and colleagues around how to make a life, and a living, in and around art.

I contributed to a chapter in this publication, in conversation with my pal Zoe Thompson-Moore, you can read the whole discussion - click the link below!

When I first started researching Māori use of earth pigments, I was frustrated with all of the writing being firmly fixed in the past. I know as Māori, we come from a long lineage of artists who used earth pigments. Our tīpuna used earth pigments in ceremony, as rongoā, to adorn their skin and as an art material. This whakapapa was passed on and I was confident that there were Māori today tapping into this beautiful resource. There just weren’t many resources explicitly sharing that mātauranga.

So I made one.

This project documents whakawhanaungatanga between contemporary Māori artists who use earth pigments in their practices today. Mana Whenua is a 55-page publication documenting an art and mātauranga exchange undertaken by a cross-section of Māori artists who work with whenua.

For something that I say I don’t like, it sure seems I do it a lot.
Here are a few links to some recent media interviews:

He Kakano Ahau: RNZ podcast about reclamation (2021)

Kauae Raro Research Collective: Salient Magazine (2021)

A lineage of reciprocity: Wild Pigment Project (2021)

Mata Aho Collective finalists in the Walters Prize: Te Ao Māori News (2021)