Ko te Tūhono

Ko te Tūhono

Ayesha Green (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu)

Ko te Tūhono is a gateway connecting us with our deep ancestral ecologies; it is a passage to our landscape, our life and the wairua we share with the harbour. As a cast aluminium replica of the doorway into Ōtākou’s wharenui Tamatea, Ko te Tūhono brings Ōtākou and all of its beings into the centre of our city. The replica casts are on the front and the back, making the entrance and the exit indistinguishable. When you move through Ko te Tūhono you are inside and outside, you are coming and going. As a monument to our tipuna and our tamariki, Ko te Tūhono transcends time and place.

Ko te Tūhono, 2021
Ayesha Green (Kāi Tahu and Ngāti Kahungunu)
Cast aluminium and steel

Artist’s Statement

I feel very lucky to be making this work.

The starting point for making the sculpture was the 3-D scanning of the doorway which leads into Tamatea, the wharenui at Ōtākou. From this 3-D drawing I worked with engineers to cast aluminium copies. The sculpture is the same on both sides and acts as a gateway: it is the liminal space between coming and going and, as it relates to a wharenui, moving in and out of our ancestor Tamatea.

I whakapapa to Ōtākou and knew that this would be an opportunity to ensure that mana whenua are represented within the urban landscape. Dunedin's colonial heritage is very Scottish with a lot of strong colonial architecture and I have thought about the differences in how architecture or buildings are understood in two different types of worldviews.

We have the wharenui space, a space where Māori gather, hui, tangi, sleep and is also the embodiment of the ancestor. When you walk inside the wharenui, you are effectively walking inside the ancestor, which for Ōtākou is Tamatea. In the city’s centre, we have the Municipal Chambers, which is the traditional space where the town gathers to discuss issues. Ko te Tūhono brings these two places together.

In addition to this, and perhaps the place where the work started, is that the carvings at the marae at Ōtākou, are concrete casts of wooden carvings. The original wooden carvings come from Pakowhai in Hawkes Bay, and are held in the Otago Museum collection. The journey of the wooden carvings is a long story and too delicate to try and condense here, but in thinking about this, Ko te Tūhono becomes a copy of a copy.

There exists in the world wooden carvings, a concrete cast of these, and now an aluminium cast of the concrete cast. In terms of my art practice, I am interested in this copying and its relationship to the performance of identity which shifts and changes over time and in relation to what is happening around us. This work can speak to that.

Ko te Tūhono flips the narrative about the agency of Māori in that shifting performance. This performance of identity shift has not come about through assimilation, but through agency within the colonial world. The use of available colonial resources such as concrete and aluminium assimilates them for Māori benefit and self-determination.

I am also working on a tile project that will complete the work. The making of these has been unfortunately delayed due to Covid, but I hope that they will be installed in April 2022.  The tiles will hold an important quote from our rakatira HK Taiaroa in which he speaks of the abundance of life in the Otago Harbour.  Their installation will coincide with the publishing of a piece of research and writing being undertaken by Megan Tamati-Quinell (Te Ātiawa, Ngāi Tahu), which will grow the knowledge of this work and the concrete carvings at Ōtākou. Please check the website again, as in time it will be updated with Megan’s research and writing.

I am so thankful to everyone who has supported this project. Thank you to the Dunedin City Council for the ongoing support of such a work. This type of mahi takes many hands and in my mind is a large group project. Thank you to everyone who has participated throughout the making of Ko te Tūhono.

Ayesha.

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