Toi Māori gallery Tui Tui opens in Palmerston North’s Square Edge Arts Centre

Square Edge Community Arts artistic director Erana Kaa in the new Tui Tui gallery.

“My strength is not mine alone but is the strength of many.”

This is one of the proverbs that influenced Rosalie Koko’s muka and cotton applique reversible quilt.

Koko is one of 11 artists who have connections to the region whose work is displayed at the new toi Māori gallery Tui Tui [bind together].

The gallery is at Square Edge Arts Centre in the space previously used by Studio on The Square, and is the brainchild of new Square Edge Community Arts artistic director Erana Kaa.

She says the gallery is an opportunity to demonstrate the diversity of Māori visual arts, as it can be narrowly categorised. Western art, with its prioritisation of visual aesthetic over cultural relevance, has imposed on Māori artists.

Palmerston North City Council has funded the space for 12 months, and the gallery has also received money from the Department of Internal Affairs.

Kaa plans to change the exhibitions monthly or bi-monthly. The inaugural exhibition is on display until mid-March.

For October, she has booked Maihi Potaka and hopes to have a moving image installation to celebrate Puanga/Matariki.

Kaa said she already has Māori artists approaching her looking to be included in the gallery.

At the moment, there are pockets of artists using a Māori visual language, and she hopes Tui Tui will help create a collective.

Kaa curated an exhibition in the foyer of Centrepoint Theatre of Māori artists to support “Two Guitars” last spring, and this planted the seed for Tui Tui.

Kaa wants Tui Tui to show the community the depth and breadth of Māori visual arts and also provide an experience for artists to elevate their curation.

Twenty people did the stitching for Koko’s quilt, which is a fusion of Māori and Pasifika art crafting styles.

Koko travelled from Wellington to Napier by bus to pick up the quilt, which had been stored at a family member’s house, then bused to Palmerston North.

She had just 20 minutes to get the quilt to Kaa before she had to get back on the bus.

Kaa started as artistic director in September. She replaced Karen Seccombe, who now works at the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges.

Kaa has five galleries to curate at Square Edge: entrance, main, Tui Tui, display cabinets and pop-up.

She wants to shift perceptions about who belongs in the building and allow for people from different communities to see themselves on the walls in meaningful ways.

Last year, Kaa completed a PhD on indigenisation of apparel construction. She taught art for 12 years at Turakina Māori Girls’ College until it closed in 2015.

A harakeke kete she made is part of the exhibition.

The other artists are Lisa Bartlett, Jess Collins, Vanessa Wairata Edwards, Pania Molloy, Asher Raawiri Newbery, Ripeka Paapu, Locke Pickah, Jordan Quinnell and Stacey Ratapu.

Judith Lacy has been the editor of the Manawatū Guardian since December 2020. She graduated from journalism school in 2001 and this is her second role editing a community paper.