A Pathway to the Guts
The ‘intimate passport’ is not used, rather it is constantly (renewed) by whomever remembers (to be touched by) it.
I know far less about the arts and technologies of Māori sewing than I do about weaving, of which I am very much a beginner learner as well. The profile of Māori sewing is smaller than that of weaving and research by specialists into the practice is ongoing. As academic author and Māori textiles expert Dr Patricia Te Arapo Wallace asks, how were some of the bone needles housed by Te Papa Tongarewa used, where and by whom? She adds that it will be important to find out how Māori sewers made materials such as dog, seal and bird skins ‘workable’.
The success of Kiko Moana, created by Mata Aho Collective, on show at documenta14 in Kassel, Germany, comes from the Collective’s attention to knowledge through time―in which what is not known, what is coming to being known, and what can only be imagined contributes to making something workable. Consummate workability is evident in Kiko Moana at the intersection of whakapapa, history, relationships, philosophies of thought and action, materiality and exhibition context. This is an exciting achievement for any individual artist or collaboration. Kiko Moana, like the Collective’s body of work to date, signals Mata Aho Collective as practitioners who are vital to a rich understanding of what ambitious and thoughtful contemporary visual practice is and can be.
A man claimed to have shaken the hand of time. ‘Well, there is more than one,’ his mother said.
I caught a first glimpse of , a flash of hazy blue, when looking.
