Lingling-O, 1-15 July 2021

This is my exploration of the famous neolithic insular Asia Pacific designs that made their way south from Taiwan and the Phillipines through the jadeless Pacific to Aotearoa in forms like the kaka pooria 'Kaka bird decoy leghold ringlet'. I discuss this whakapapa and wānanga in my book 'Maori Art: History, Architecture, Landscape and Theory', Batemans, Auckland, 2015/2018: 226. There are also references to the more ancient Lapita visual vocabulary used in the paintings Fiji/te Whitinga mai and The People of the Jueh ‘the axe’ (also an ambivalent reference to the tauiwi love of chopping down our native forests). I use the ling ling-o and jue forms as a symbol of the older reference to values and aspirations that Austronesian, Pacific, Polynesian and Māori peoples hold as legacy. Aroha is also one of those inherited values and I argue within ĀTĀROA that aroha is what the land wars were really about. A love of the land, a love of the community, a love of tikanga, legacy and a proper and fitting way of conducting one's cultural practices and addressing conflict.
Location: on display, Whetū Mārama whare wānanga, Te Aurere, 10 December 2022-December 2024