Maree Mills BFA, MFA, TTC

DIRECTOR: HASTINGS CITY ART GALLERY

VIDEO ARTIST, DESIGNER

Ngati Tuwharetoa Scottish and English heritage Maree is currently the Director of the Hastings City Art Gallery. She sometimes works within the film industry as well as exhibiting her video art in New Zealand and abroad.

Her video work is conceptually focused on exploring and communicating the female element in tikanga Maori and this practice extends to contextual publication on Maori and “new” media art. She is a founding member of Nga Aho : Maori Designers Network and her curatorial focus has been primarily contemporary Maori art and digital media practice.

SELECTED EXHIBITION HISTORY

Kauwae 09: Puanga Kai Rau, Group Show Mangere Arts Centre (2009)

Mana Whenua: International on line video project (2008) BLINK

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7312943804473083896

http://www.blinkart.org/

Within: Group show with Anahera Kingi and Linley Huggins, curator and exhibitor, Artspost Gallery Hamilton (2008)

Tohu Inaianei : Signs for today, with Jacob Manu Scott MIA Gallery, Napier (2007) Artspost Gallery, Hamilton (2008)

Ara, Hupana: Flight Path, Lopdell House, Auckland (2007, ArtsPost, Hamilton (2007)

Pourewa: A Question of balance; EA Gallery. Auckland (2006), Manawataki, APA Hamilton (2006)

HineAhuOne - Solo exhibition; Margot Phillips gallery at ARTSPOST, Hamilton (2004)

Hau – Curator for group exhibition New Media Show; Platform01 Gallery, Hamilton (2004)

Whare – Group exhibition National Aboriginal Cultural Institute – Tandanya, Adelaide (2004)

Whare – Group Exhibition For SCAPE: Art and Industry Urban Arts Biennial (2002)

Two- Group Exhibition, Familiar Love, Artstation, Auckland (2000)

Koro-Group Exhibition, Gertrude St Gallery Melbourne (1999)

On the mat – Group Exhibition, Pacific Art Awards, Contemporary Pacific Art gallery, Auckland (1999)

Koro – Solo exhibition Artstation, Auckland (1999)

It’s a black and white thing – Group Exhibition Site Bldg2 RMIT Melbourne (1998)

Publications

Mills, M (2009) ‘Pou Rewa, The liquid Post. Maori go digital?’ In Third Text, Special Edition, Refereed journal. UK, USA

Mills, M. (2008) ‘Contemporary Maori Women’s New media Art Practice’ in Aotearoa Arts Digital List (ed) Brennan, S. Auckland

VIDEO WORK

Mana Whenua : The essence of land / the tangata whenua single channel streamed video for web. Current uploaded : 25/3/2008mini DV 2min 45sec.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7312943804473083896

http://www.blinkart.org/

Last year Terry Flaxton (UK) approached me to join the BLINK project.

This is a collaborative international video project with proceeds directed to an orphanage in Peru. All the video artists involved wish to make work that engages with the notion of Artist as a social change agent.This work “Mana Whenua” is number #5 in a sequence and follows Ruelo Zendo from the Phillipines with his work “Homing”. The

Links to each work can be found on Google video or You tube, and will eventually be collated and sold as one DVD.The footage was predominantly shot over the Waitangi festival February 2008 at Farndon Park, Clive, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

The Waka footage is shot on the Waikato river in Ngaruawahia during our Maori Queens Tangi / funeral. The evocative sound is re-mixed from my previous work along with live sound and contains traditional Maori instruments performed by Richard Nunns.

It is a hopeful snapshot of our culture today with its strong connections to the past, now present in everyday life. Our enduring connection to the land has meant our culture will survive and this aspect of our tikanga can be something that I feel can be gifted to other peoples on the planet. They too might become as one with papatuanuku, our Earth Mother.

Tohu Inaianei : Signs of the Times

Multi channel animation projection. MIA Gallery, Napier 2007 mini DV 3min DVD loop ArtsPost Gallery, Hamilton 2008To be projected or large monitor.No sound

Tohu Inaianei was a collaborative project with artist Jacob Manu Scott. We were introduced to Ballantyne’s symbols for the elements when we read some old art in New Zealand magazines. A lively discussion regarding early romantic writing about Maori art began and we decided to develop the symbols so that they speak to the duality in the Maori world.

We believe fundamental wisdoms, for example the balanced relationship between Ranginui and Papatuanuku, are as important now as they were at the time of creation. We wanted to adopt a kaupapa Maori process to our thinking and making, so we began with what we we think we know: what it is to be a woman, what it is to be a man How Maori men and women might ‘be’ in this age. We both drew out our ideas.

The drawings once exchanged took on their own power. I filmed Jakes drawings and saw the creation story itself begin to emerge from the forms. Jake saw contemporary metaphors emerge from the computer where his animated drawings danced. They were captured, a moment in time to be reworked and revered. In this way we wove the korero and the practice. An exciting body of work emerged along with a new respect for the relevance of our tikanga (belief systems).

Ara Hupana ; Flight Path

Single channel split screen projection. Lopdell House: Auckland 2007mini DV 3min DVD loop Artspost: Hamilton 2007To be screened large, with surround soundInstallation of Hatupatu’s carnage on the floor beneath the projection

“Ara Hupana (2007) communicates an alternative reading of the mythological bird woman from Te Arawa legend, Kurungaituku. This bird-woman has occurred to me as a symbol for the Noa status of woman. Rose Pere says that Noa is associated with freedom and the spirit of freedom is embodied in the image of our eagle.

This is an alternative to the commonly used yet inadequate explanation of Noa as ‘profane’, the opposite to Tapu (sacred or restricted). Kurunngaituku is a supernatural being that can traverse the realm of earth-mother and sky-father. Her flight, knowledge of the arts and her ability to commune with all other living creatures sets her apart.

Rather than accept her death at the hands of Hatupatu, the male hero in the original story, I think of her as a phoenix figure. Raptors are solar symbols in every indigenous culture. My birdwoman is transformed rather than vanquished by fire and this alludes to her power to transform the hero from boy to man in the original narrative.

Ara Hupana uses visual layering, expansive images of the bird woman’s habitat and emotive surround sound from traditional Maori musical instruments to communicate the essence of Kurungaituku, rather than follow a linear narrative.Kurungaituku is acknowledged on screen by a karanga (a welcome call from women) and sent off by the transformative element of fire, the setting and rising sun, suggesting the ancestress flies among us still.

These potent images of female power have been lost by colonization. The atua wahine (Maori goddesses) deeply buried behind their male counterparts to make way for the embrace of Christian religion and the dominion of one male god. “ M. Mills :Contemporary Maori Women’s New Media Art Practice (2007, ADA Reader)

POUREWA : The quest for balance

Single channel split screen projection. E.A. Gallery, Auckland 2006mini DV 3min DVD loop APA , Calder & Lawson 2006To be screened large, with surround sound

New Media art has the potential to create and nurture a distinctive public space for the articulation of alternative Maori world views. I am a contemporary Maori artist working in the field of video installation whose focus is on the communication of indigenous philosophy. This work illustrates my own journey towards comprehending the place of Maori women. Pourewa suggests a balance between the complimentary roles of male and female.

Visual metaphor associated with gender balance has derived from mythic symbolism and the resurrection of Maori cosmogony. This esoteric body of knowledge reinvigorates and informs new media with its sensual and non-linear communication capabilities. It also has wider implications for other indigenous cultures that are also embracing digital media in an effort to communicate their own cosmogony, cosmology and philosophy to others.

Far from irrelevant in the modern world, traditional indigenous social, political and cosmological ontologies are profoundly important to the development of transformative alternative frameworks for global order and new ways of being.

Stewart Harawira, Makere (2005) The New Imperial Order: Indigenous responses to Globalization, Huia, Wellington. N.Z. My visualization and exhibition of these concepts is intended to facilitate public interest in Maori philosophy prior to European contact and to consider its application in a contemporary context. It also seeks to contribute to the empowerment of Maori women who have been marginalized in the ethnocentric and patriarchal re-telling of their origin, role and place.

HineAhuOne Large Scale sculptural installation Plywood base, compost on cardboard frame, kauri leaf blanket, video projection from the kakano (seed) head.

The work was “alive” in that white mould grew over the female figure for the duration of the show. The room was warm and dark and lit only by the projection. There was also a potent earth smell.Video projection came from the head (DVD loop)Surround sound of native birds, (many now extinct) being disturbed by Hine’s waking and moving spirit. Artspost Gallery HamiltonHamilton 2004

Despite a Christian upbringing, the idea of a sky father and earth mother has always resonated with me. Papatuanuku’s regenerative and nurturing powers evidence of her gender, echoed in matriarchal religions of old. The story of Hine Ahu One, the first mortal woman, was fashioned from the earth by Tane in his search for the female element. To me it means I am connected to the whenua (land) by whakapapa, (genealogy) something I have always felt in my spirit.

The story of Hineahuone, the first mortal woman, also holds great power for us today. Man needs again to get connected to the female element, mortal and spiritual . Without this he may lose that life force that is in precarious balance and coerce Rangi and Papa to embrace, once again plunging us in to Te Po (darkness).

Hau : Breath / Wind

My current practise explores communication of ethereal and/orcosmological concepts inherent in the Maori world view, from a female perspective.I believe video installation is a multi-layered form of communication that can make some headway towards articulating aspects of tikanga Maori for the twenty first century.Margaret Orbell in her book "The natural world of the Maori" says that "Human breath was experienced as the counterpart of the breath of the world, which was felt to possess a kind of life."The harnessing of the elements in order to carry messages or the rising of winds to augur a spiritual presence is a concept notable in many indigenous cultures.

Building paper cut-out Pou Projection in mouth, harnessing the elements.

Projector is coffin covered in a cloak woven from videotape. In this work, a female deity is called forth by the elements, from progeny of the deceased in order to assist the journey of the soul. This work is homage to my father, John Roger Mills who passed away in 2004