Remember Industry: Tracy Keith

14 Mahuru 2024 – 1 Hui-tanguru 2025
14 September 2024 – 1 February 2025

Mā te hanga matapaia ka tūhura a Tracy Keith (Ngāpuhi) i ngā hononga o te tangata me te taiao (te ao tūroa). I Remember Industry ka tirohia e Keith te whakapapa o ngā rawa māori pēnei i te uku me te rākau i whai hua ai te ao, tangata mai, tikanga mai, oranga mai.

Ka karapitihia e te kaitoi ētahi āhua hanga mīhini nei ki ngā tukanga mahi ā-ringa, tawhito hoki. Ko āna tārai uku he mea hanga nā te rāwekeweke, te whakamātau me te tino whāwhā i te uku. Ka whakamahia e Keith he ritenga hou o te tukanga Hapanihi raku-ahi 500 tau te tawhito, ka tahuna ngā matapaia kia wera rawa, kātahi ka tangohia mai i te umu, ka whakatakoto ai ki ngā rawa ngingiha. Ka hua i tēnei tauhohe matū he āhuatanga matapōkere, he maitai rewa, he kirimōhinu maitai.

Ka whakatinana ngā mahi a Keith i tōna hītori, otirā, te whānuitanga me te pānga o te “nuku tāone”, he tūāhuatanga tāpua nō muri mai i te Pakanga Tuarua o te Ao, nō te nuku a ngā rōpū Māori i ngā tūrangawaewae ki ngā tāone ki te whai mahi. Ka whakaatu a Remember Industry i ngā wheako o te kaitoi, i tana tipuranga taha o tōna koroua i mahi ki te wheketere hanga pepa ā-rohe.

Hei tēnei whakaaturanga kitea ai ngā matapaia hou, he peita, he pikitia hoki e whakaatu ana i ngā tīpuna kāre i mōhiotia me te reanga whāngai, he hua o te “nuku tāone”. Mā te whakahanumi i ngā āhua ahumahi ki ngā whakaahua kiritangata me ngā tārai uku toi tūturu e whakaara ai e Keith te hītori o tōna whānau, te whaturama o te whakapapa me te “tūrangawaewae i matakitea” e ai ki a Te Rarawa Kohere, i āta matakitea e ngā iwi me ngā hapū te hononga ki te whenua” [1]. Mā te whakamahi i ngā māoritanga o ana rawa e whakaatuatu nei e Keith ngā hītori, ngā āhuatanga o te taiao me te ao e noho nei tātau.

Kei Heretaunga a Tracy Keith (Ngāpuhi) e noho ana, otirā e mahi ana, ki reira tū nei hei kaiako Maunga Kura Toi Rauangi ki Toimairangi, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Kua whakaaturia ngā mahi a Tracy ki ngā whare toi puta noa i Aotearoa pēnei i The Dowse Art Museum, i Pātaka, i Bartley & Company, i Wairau me Tim Melville.

Through making ceramics, Tracy Keith (Ngāpuhi) explores a vast realm of connections between people and te taiao (the natural world). In Remember Industry, Keith looks to the whakapapa of natural materials like clay and timber that have shaped human lives, meaning, and livelihoods.

The artist juxtaposes machine-like forms with ancient and hands-on processes. His clay sculptures are formed through rough, direct manipulation and experimentation with clay. Keith uses a modern version of a 500-year-old Japanese raku firing process, where ceramics are heated to extremely high temperatures, removed from the kiln, and placed in combustible materials. This chemical reaction creates unpredictable effects and molten, metallic glazes.

Keith’s art practice processes his own personal history and the wider, ongoing impact of the “urban drift”, a significant historical moment post-World War II, when large groups of Māori moved from their tūrangawaewae to urban centres and townships in the pursuit of paid work. Remember Industry reflects on the artist’s experiences growing up with his grandfather, who worked at the local pulp and paper plant.

The exhibition includes new ceramics, with paintings and drawings, which reflect unknown tīpuna and the adopted generation as consequence of the urban drift. Merging industrial forms with portraiture and figurative sculptures, Keith invokes the history of his own whānau, ruptures in whakapapa, and what Te Rarawa Kohere has described as “a tūrangawaewae of thought”, where iwi and hapū “thought their lives into being in relationship to the land" [1]. Working with the elemental and metaphorical qualities of his materials, Keith calls attention to the histories, material conditions, and world around us.

Tracy Keith (Ngāpuhi) lives and works in Heretaunga Hastings, where he is Kaiako - Maunga Kura Toi Rauangi at Toimairangi School of Māori Visual Art, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Tracy has exhibited widely within Aotearoa New Zealand at galleries such as The Dowse Art Museum, Pātaka Art + Museum, Bartley & Company Gallery, Wairau Māori Art Gallery, and Tim Melville Gallery.