Toi Te Mana: A 12-year journey of friendship, art and legacy
2 December 2024
Deidre Brown and Ngarino Ellis share the story of their almost 30-year friendship, and their latest collaboration – a landmark history of Māori art.
Twelve years ago, over coffee at the Business School café, Professor Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), Associate Professor Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) and the late Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī) began sketching out an ambitious plan to create a comprehensive history of Māori art.
That early brainstorming session among friends and colleagues has evolved into Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art, a landmark work of over 600 pages and 500 images that reflects their collective vision and dedication to showcasing the richness and diversity of Māori art.
Toi Te Mana invites readers to immerse themselves in Māori art history, revealing the creativity and innovation of generations of Māori artists.
The timing of the book’s release couldn’t be better, says Ngarino. In a moment when Aotearoa New Zealand’s media is awash with images and narratives about Māori identity, Toi Te Mana offers an essential perspective.
“We have always been fabulous, and our artists have been able to articulate this.
Our chiefs have been able to organise works to be made to celebrate our unique identity, history and culture,” says Ngarino.
“For me, it’s about realising how deep and meaningful art has been over the generations to sustain us in terms of being Māori. And it can continue to sustain us, both now and into the future.”
The best part of creating this book has been our team approach and being able to run ideas by each other. Having this beautiful book at the end is just the cherry on top.
A monumental project
Given the vast array of Māori art practices, defining the scope of what to include in the book was no small task. With encouragement from the book’s publisher, Auckland University Press, they took the project as far as they could imagine, envisioning what a comprehensive Māori art history textbook might cover.
The authors delve into a wide range of artistic work, including raranga (plaiting), whatu (weaving), moko (tattoo), whakairo (carving), rākai (jewellery), kākahu (textiles), whare (architecture), toi whenua (rock art), painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics and film.
Their exploration spans from the arrival of Pacific voyagers 800 years ago to the work of contemporary Māori artists in Aotearoa and around the world today, fittingly ending on the 2024 Venice Biennale, with Mataaho Collective receiving the prestigious Golden Lion Award for their large-scale immersive installation, entitled Takapau.
“Our definitions of Māori art aren’t just restricted to what we have on ngā motu, the islands that we live on. Māori art occurs wherever Māori artists live, and they live and practice all around the world,” says Deidre.
Our definitions of Māori art aren’t just restricted to what we have on ngā motu, the islands that we live on. Māori art occurs wherever Māori artists live.
In the preface of the book, the authors make clear their definition of Māori art, with Ngarino highlighting the need to address common misconceptions about who can create it.
“There are lots of people who believe that Māori art can be made by anyone. We believe, and our assertion is, that Māori art can only be made by Māori, by people who have whakapapa. That is non-negotiable,” she says.
“We believe that through colonisation, a lot has been stripped away from us as Māori. One of the things that we hold dear and precious to us as Māori is our art forms and our art traditions. So that is absolutely a bottom line for us.”
A history of shared experiences
Deidre and Ngarino’s friendship spans nearly three decades, rooted in their shared experiences as students and colleagues. They both pursued their undergraduate degrees at the University of Auckland around the same time, with Deidre focusing on architecture and Ngarino on law and art history, creating a complementary dynamic between their fields.
In March, Deidre won the Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects’ 2023 Gold Medal, making history as the first Māori woman and first academic to receive such recognition.
Meanwhile, Ngarino is currently the only full-time Māori art historian working at a New Zealand university and teaches the sole Māori art history paper, which will be offered in semester two of 2025.
Their close connection was further strengthened by their shared journey through parenthood while working on Toi Te Mana.“
We raised young families while we were writing this book. We have sons that don’t know anything else except us writing this book,” says Deidre.
Having now collaborated on three books, including Te Puna: Māori Art from Te Tai Tokerau (2007) and Does Māori Art History Matter? (2014), their easy collaboration is clear. Their long-standing friendship has left a lasting mark on Toi Te Mana, giving the work a depth and authenticity that reflects their connection.
“The best part of creating this book has been our team approach and being able to run ideas by each other. Having this beautiful book at the end is just the cherry on top,” says Ngarino.
Hussein Moses
A TRIBUTE TO A LEGACY
The book has taken on special meaning for Deidre and Ngarino following the passing of Jonathan Mane-Wheoki in 2014.
A respected figure in Māori art history and a modernist painter, Jonathan spent decades teaching at the University of Canterbury, where he mentored Deidre when she joined the art history department in 1998.
He later took a role at Te Papa before his appointment as Head of Elam School of Fine Arts from 2009 to 2012.
“We started the project with Jonathan, and he passed away about a year-and-a-half through. His vision, which we all shared, was to situate Māori art within the great art traditions of the world and Māori art history within the great art histories of the world. We had very strong feelings about this, and we felt that a project like this would be a contribution to achieving that,” says Deidre.
Dedicated to Jonathan, the book is a tribute to his legacy, say Deidre and Ngarino.
"When we saw the book for the first time, we were struck by its size,” says Ngarino. “We’re not tall people, so to have a three-kilogram book was quite overwhelming. Then suddenly, all those years we spent working on it collapsed in time. For me, it felt like we were back to day one, when we were brainstorming and having a coffee at the café in the Business School with Jonathan.
“All that time just disappeared, and there we were as a team again.”
This article first appeared in the December 2024 issue of UniNews.