A Decorated Back Alley

A Mythical Creature

Of Maori Legend

And Imagination

Striding the Wall

Whanganui Back Alley
May 2010.Ajr

A Foxton Shed

Something about this old shed appealed to me - the swirl of designs covered over with corrugated iron, a desire to know what it was hiding....

You never know what you're going to find in Foxton.

School Time in Gisborne

After you've spent a couple of days driving around the North Island's East Cape, stopping at the dozens and dozens of marae you pass along the way, you begin to feel like you're in another world - and in a way you are....a Maori world for sure. East Cape's population has always been predominantly Maori and it it is still perhaps, New Zealand's richest area for seeing Maori culture within a 'real' (as opposed to tourism) context.

So after throwing yourself wholeheartedly into that mix for a couple of days, entering the region's largest town, Gisborne, is like driving into a contemporary oasis....at one level at least. For there's no doubt that Gisborne is the main centre in this part of the world and the population is still predominantly Maori. Here though, you see Maori design with a more contemporary influence - the graffiti, the murals, the contemporary carvings. I had hardly entered the town boundary when I slammed on my brakes outside Kaiti Primary School to photograph a whole line of colourful murals that ran the length of a walkway beside the school. I didn't linger too long because I was also opposite the Kaiti Community Police Centre and a uniformed member of staff seemed to be keeping an eye on my activities from the window - not that I was doing anything wrong of course, but some people do seem to get a bit fidgety when they see you brandishing a camera. In a way though, murals like these sum up my lasting impressions of Gisborne - sure it's remote and sure it's not exactly 'fashionable and trendy' but its colourful and completely unique; and its inhabitants seem to be almost encouraged to embellish the town with interesting artistic expressions. I like that about a place.

Maori Murals

I photographed these terrific murals in Gisborne and like several others I've featured here previously, they make strong reference to traditional Maori design motifs. You don't see this proliferation of Maori mural design anywhere else in New Zealand - at least not to the degree that you come upon it in Gisborne and elsewhere in Eastland. It's understandable of course - the whole Eastland/East Cape region has a large Maori population and things Maori are very much alive and well here.

Eastland Street Art

Gisborne, on the North Island's east coast is one of the more remote of New Zealand's provinvial towns and cities. It is also home to a large Maori population and I love the fact that you can walk the streets here and constantly come face-to-face with colourful murals, graffiti and street art, all with a strong Maori design theme. My time there most recently (in May) was unfortunately short, but I raced about the streets like a mad thing, photographing left, right and centre. Luckily the weather held and I was able to get a record of many of the street works that may well be gone a few months from now. I loved this mural, painted down the length of a wall of some of the Tairawhiti Polytechnic buildings. www.tairawhiti.ac.nz

Street Murals Out East

Here's another example of the fabulous street murals that add colour and punch to the Gisborne townscape. I photographed this one on one of the Tarawhiti Polytechnic buildings. It's another example of the strong Maori design influence that most street murals in the East Cape/Eastland region have. Beautiful!

More Maori-Inspired Graffiti

Tokomaru Bay, East Cape. May 2009 Ajr

I touched on the subject of Maori-inspired graffiti here a couple of weeks ago (click on graffiti in the label line below to reads that if you're interested). That post came about in response to a comment someone else had made about never having seen any 'Maori graffiti.' Whether you call the above graffiti or street art is a moot point but one thing is for sure, there's an all-pervading 'Maoriness' to everything about it. I took these photographs in gorgeous Tokomaru Bay, which is a small seaside town with a large Maori population, about 91 kilometres north of Gisborne on East Cape. The local Maori, Te Whanau-a-Ruataupare have four active marae within the community; and the main town centre is more or less in the middle of the big horseshoe bay, which provides the locals with eight kilometres of golden, sandy beach.

Cultural Graffiti

I’m a big fan of modern graffiti. I photograph it wherever I go and you can see a lot of it on my other blog – http://adriennerewiimagines.blogspot.com/ Just put graffiti into the search box and you should find heaps if you’re interested. That by way of introduction to this post about Maori-inspired graffiti and a comment I read yesterday on Baruk Feddabonn’s blog, http://bottlebroke.blogspot.com/ In his piece about Maori influences in New Zealand art (rock art and beyond), he says he has “yet to see any graffiti based on Maori/Pacific/Tribal styles.”

I think it depends on how you define “Maori/Pacific/Tribal style” but I have to say I saw quite a lot of Pacific-inspired graffiti in Auckland (understandably given that it is the largest Polynesian city in the world); and these pieces shown here, are from Eastland – Gisborne specifically -which has a large Maori population and a strong Maori cultural identity. They defnitely speak of Maori culture to me. Perhaps that’s what it comes down to – a strong cultural identity. We may be a bicultural country but for many Maori, speaking their own language and strongly identifying with their own culture in everyday life is a relatively new phenomenon. In more remote places like Eastland though, Maori culture has always been at the forefront of daily life and te Reo is spoken more often than English in many areas. Fluent expression in the arts - and yes, that does include graffiti and street art - requires personal confidence, a belief in self and a surety about who you are and where you come from. I think many young Maori in urban areas do create graffiti, but unless they have strong Maori cultural roots, they are more likely to mimic western and most particularly American graffiti styles. These no doubt are seen as being "cooler."

It seems logical to me that Maori living in ‘strong Maori pockets’ would have more confidence in expressing themselves in modern media like graffiti, with some reference to their own culture. You’re unlikely to find graffiti like this for instance, in places like Christchurch, or Parnell where modern Pakeha/western culture dominates. From my experience, graffiti of any sort is always ‘of its place’ one way or another. That is, it expresses the thoughts and culture of those creating it. Therefore, if you want to see Maori/Pacific/Tribal-inspired graffiti, you put yourself in the places that most strongly support individual cultural expression. Almost all the graffiti, street art and murals I photographed in Eastland were based on traditional Maori design elements - some more strongly than others admittedly -and many came from a unique Maori perspective.