Tawhanga Nopera, Let it burn - let it burn
Tawhanga Nopera
Te Arawa/Ngati Tuwharetoa/Tainui, Ngapuhi
Alternative Name
Richard Kareopa
Date
2016
Medium Specific
Digital composition printed on poly-satin fabric
Printer
Ferrari Color, Sacramento
Classification
Mixed Media
Dimensions
22 1/2 x 40 in. (57.2 x 101.6 cm)
Accession Number
2016.20.25.319
Credit
Gift of the Artist
Memo / Artist Statement
Huka can haka: Taonga performing tino rangatiratanga
The focus of this practice-based research considers ways raranga can affirm sexual and gendered expressions. It is a subjective-autobiographical research project, conveyed through digital image, digital video, performance art and creative writing. I am a Māori artist who emphasises lived creative practice – where art-making is ritualised as daily habits of agency. Doing so allows a self-critical lens to help heal from stigma, discrimination and the marginalisation that manifests at the intersection of culture, sexuality and gender.
The beginning of a woven work is described through the Māori term whakapapa, where a weaver designs destiny. Whakapapa documents generations, determines pattern, form and a function. Whakapapa is genealogy and over time kairaranga, or Māori weavers, have documented the grounded abiity for Māori people to adapt and shift through time. Colonialism is definately something I want to adapt and shift beyond.
My work included in this exhibition has emerged as part of a woven process – I have gathered aspects of a lived and shifting space; through digital image I create way-finding tools. In these works I design my own journey towards hope – I use them to envision a heart beyond the hurt.
The focus of this practice-based research considers ways raranga can affirm sexual and gendered expressions. It is a subjective-autobiographical research project, conveyed through digital image, digital video, performance art and creative writing. I am a Māori artist who emphasises lived creative practice – where art-making is ritualised as daily habits of agency. Doing so allows a self-critical lens to help heal from stigma, discrimination and the marginalisation that manifests at the intersection of culture, sexuality and gender.
The beginning of a woven work is described through the Māori term whakapapa, where a weaver designs destiny. Whakapapa documents generations, determines pattern, form and a function. Whakapapa is genealogy and over time kairaranga, or Māori weavers, have documented the grounded abiity for Māori people to adapt and shift through time. Colonialism is definately something I want to adapt and shift beyond.
My work included in this exhibition has emerged as part of a woven process – I have gathered aspects of a lived and shifting space; through digital image I create way-finding tools. In these works I design my own journey towards hope – I use them to envision a heart beyond the hurt.
Biography
I am a transgender digital and performance artist, and kaupapa Māori academic, currently in the final stages of the first Kaupapa Māori creative practice-based PhD, through the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. With a particular interest in ways that people are impacted upon by notions of power, I seek out ways to transform from traumatic experiences. I theorise kaupapa Māori, transgender identites, sexuality, and the ways that raranga can shift negative mediations of these.
I am of Te Arawa descent with an iwi being – Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Wāhiao, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whaoa, Ngāti Tarawhai and Ngāti Rangitihi, and have firm Waikato (Ngāti Amaru) and Ngāpuhi (Ngai Tawake) whakapapa. I am based at Ohinemutu, Rotorua.
I am of Te Arawa descent with an iwi being – Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Wāhiao, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whaoa, Ngāti Tarawhai and Ngāti Rangitihi, and have firm Waikato (Ngāti Amaru) and Ngāpuhi (Ngai Tawake) whakapapa. I am based at Ohinemutu, Rotorua.