At times, the landform looks like a terrestrial veil, suspended in a potent black space that seems to call back in time to the first dawn light - te whaiao. Other times road bridges, cars, or toppled monuments populate the landscape and we seem located in the present. Here all histories seem spiralled into the now.
It is MTG Hawke's Bay's job to illuminate local stories of the history of this area. Exploring these stories through creative mediums such as photography, provides an opportunity for visitors to engage and learn in different ways.
MTG is also committed to supporting the practice of Ngāti Kahungunu artists, giving them visibility through the exhibition of their work.
Hawke's Bay's 19th century history remains defining for its people today. In the 50 years following settlement of Ahuriri, Napier, demand for land saw settlers employ increasingly brutal and unjust methods of land acquisition from Māori landowners.
While in recent times, the Waitangi Tribunal has largely acknowledged these injustices, it is reasonable to assert that many of us in the community remain unaware of this history.
New Zealand historians have been critical of the Native Land Court and the Native Lands Acts for a number of reasons, mainly that land was easily sold to private purchasers, leading to very rapid Māori land loss and consequential impoverishment.
Flatt's project started as an investigation into the story of land sales in Hawke's Bay. After reading the Hawke's Bay Native Lands Alienation Commission report published in 1873, Flatt became aware that it was crucial he learn from stories known by local Māori.
In his research for the project, Flatt has been lucky to hear first-hand the stories of this place.
The oral histories that underpin Flatt's artwork have been told to him by the descendants of Hawke's Bay's 19th century change makers such as Tareha and Te Hapuku. Chad and Taape Tareha, Teiti Hapuku, Margie McGuire, Aki Piper and Patrick Parsons were incredibly generous in sharing their historical knowledge, histories that are simply not published, or publicly known.
In Te ahua, te wa, te atea the artist does not attempt to tell these stories, nor does Flatt express a point of view. There are no words or text in the work, being solely sound and moving image. Rather it is a response, a visual and felt response, to this place - the experience of being in this whenua and learning something of the stories held in the land.
Since graduating from Auckland University in 2013 Flatt has received a number of prestigious acknowledgements - the Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award in 2020, The Wallace Arts Trust Vermont Residency in 2015 and the Auckland Festival of the Arts Commission in 2016.
Intensely productive, Flatt has also exhibited with private galleries, Tim Melville and Michael Lett. He was recently included in Ngahiraka Mason's A Very Different World at Te Tuhi Arts Centre, Sympathetic Resonance at the Suter Gallery and Ata Te Tangata in Pingyao China.
It is timely to support Flatt with a commission of this scale and within the Kahungunu region.
We do hope you can join us on Saturday at 11am to hear the artist discuss the project with Dowse director Karl Chitham, Te Hira Henderson from MTG and myself, in the MTG's Century Theatre.
Toni MacKinnon is Art Curator at MTG
