The situation of the artifact and Ngāi Tahu taonga from Te Waipounamu – The South Island, within museums in Aotearoa and abroad is foregrounded in the collaborative project of Māori artist Areta Wilkinson (Ngāi Tahu) and Pākehā artist Mark Adams. A residency at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, UK, between 2009-17 allowed the artists to respond to those parts of collections with personal significance housed in English and German museums. The pair produced unique silver bromide photograms of taonga and the tools and materials of their making. For Wilkinson, the project allowed a direct engagement with her whakapapa as a maker, and to produce new works from the absences in these photograms which directly reference the mātauranga Māori of her ancestors. For Adams, the project opened up a way of engaging with the colonial relationships these artifacts and taonga are enmeshed in without messing with them. "Repatriation" intends to return the shades of this cultural material and new manifestations of it to our eyes here.
The situation of the artifact and Ngāi Tahu taonga from Te Waipounamu – The South Island, within museums in Aotearoa and abroad is foregrounded in the collaborative project of Māori artist Areta Wilkinson (Ngāi Tahu) and Pākehā artist Mark Adams. A residency at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, UK, between 2009-17 allowed the artists to respond to those parts of collections with personal significance housed in English and German museums. The pair produced unique silver bromide photograms of taonga and the tools and materials of their making. For Wilkinson, the project allowed a direct engagement with her whakapapa as a maker, and to produce new works from the absences in these photograms which directly reference the mātauranga Māori of her ancestors. For Adams, the project opened up a way of engaging with the colonial relationships these artifacts and taonga are enmeshed in without messing with them. "Repatriation" intends to return the shades of this cultural material and new manifestations of it to our eyes here.
