Te Manawa ū, from Noa Blanket Co., features in Paraikete Threads.
The autumn season of exhibitions has opened at Pātaka Art + Museum, with one showing how history can be held in the threads of blankets.
Two other exhibitions signal the first solo exhibition for two artists working in different media.
Featuring work by Jeanine Clarkin, Noa Blanket Co and Mataaho Collective, Paraikete Threads demonstrates how blankets hold many meanings in indigenous cultures.
The exhibition also looks at how contemporary Māori artists are working with the stories, histories and knowledge systems embedded in the blanket.
From sustainable and upcycled fashion designs, luxury blankets and repurposing mink blankets as space for wānanga, Paraikete Threads considers how artists respond to the many threads of blanket history in te ao Māori and the new meanings produced through contemporary practice.
Also opening recently is Ahilapalapa Rands: Across the Sea, which explores the connections with Hawai’i across the expanse of the ocean.
In her first solo exhibition, Rands presents two bodies of work that consider how relations, attachments and solidarities are maintained across the sea. The works considers and highlights the experiences of diaspora Kānaka Maoli (people native to Hawai’i) in Aotearoa.
Rounding out the autumn season at Pātaka is Maioha Kara: In Good Relation. In this first solo exhibition, Te Whanganui-a-Tara artist Maioha Kara displays her timber structures, which are excavated with patterns and filled with glitter.
Drawing on concepts and geometries found within te ao Māori, Kara explores the connections between people and our natural environments.
“Across the shows you will come across black mink, couture fashion, alluring glitter, velvet pageantry, luxury wool, and the glimmer of tinsel,” says Pātaka lead curator, Ioana Gordon-Smith.
“While the works come from a place of mātauranga (wisdom) and profound attachment and connection, they also aspire to indigenous experiences of joy.”
These exhibitions are all showing until Sunday 2 June. More information, visit: pataka.org.nz
12 Mar 2024
