Contemporary Māori art has boomed in recent years and the development of a ceramics movement has been part of this. Although clay-working and pottery-firing were ancient Pacific practices, the knowledge was largely lost before Māori arrived in Aotearoa.
In 1987, a small but determined group of clay artists banded together to form a national clayworkers’ collective Ngā Kaihanga Uku. Since then, Māori clay art has been shaped by traditional ancestral knowledge and customs and connections with indigenous cultures with unbroken ceramic traditions.
Baye Riddell (Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare) became a full-time potter in 1974, the first Māori artist to commit to this profession. One of the founders of Ngā Kaihanga Uku, his book Ngā Kaihanga Uku – Māori Clay Artists is the first comprehensive overview of Māori clay work.
Here, in the Listener online’s new column, Book takes, he shares three things he hopes readers gain from it
History
This is an accurate, first-hand account of the birth and development of the collective Ngā Kaihanga Uku. With the passing of Manos Nathan and Colleen Urlich, two of our founding members, it became a personal priority to record the history, sequence of events and the dynamics behind the development of this collective.
Ngā Kaihanga Uku developed from a need to express and articulate a Māori approach to ceramics. This was also being played out in a number of new artforms and media being embraced and explored by contemporary Māori artists, particularly through Ngā Puna Waihanga (Māori Artists and Writers) to redefine mainstream and traditional perceptions of art and practice.
Māori artists, including ceramic artists, have reconfigured perceptions of art within the mainstream NZ art scene but also within our own culture. The portrayal of our stories, symbologies and worldview produces works that are unique and readily identifiable to this land.
In the 1970s, the mainstream NZ ceramics movement was beginning to explore its own identity in the face of influences mainly from Europe and Asia, and to a lesser extent the USA. Ngā Kaihanga Uku developed not as a rejection of these disciplines and approaches but as similarly needing to establish our own Māori identity within the world ceramics community.
The emergence of Ngā Kaihanga Uku also represents a reconnection and a continuum with ancient proto-Polynesian forebears who were potters. The ceramic reclamation sits solidly on traditional use of clay for several purposes as outlined in the book, but also on whakapapa and stories that portray the components of ceramics – clay, water, air and fire – as entities and personalities rather than as materials and elements. These accounts go right back to our stories of creation.
Values
Whanaungatanga (kinship) is one of the unwritten core values and the model for us as a collective. This is the model that underscores us as Māori and has guided us as a group. As well as the initial getting together of the five founding members, we have seen the emergence and growth of a committed new generation (reanga hou) of Māori uku artists. Our maxim has been to share – knowledge, resources, responsibilities - “Nā tō rourou nā taku rourou hei ka ora ai te iwi” (With your basket and my basket we will sustain the people).
A natural incorporation and assimilation of uku vessels and works into customary use and ritual has been a result of responding to requests from our people for purpose-made works celebrating many aspects of life from birth to death. To see this acceptance and evolution of culture has been particularly satisfying.
Connections
In our journey we have made so many highly valued connections and I hope this is something the reader derives from the book.
This was never meant to be an exhaustive account of every Māori who ever worked with clay. It is focused on the development of Ngā Kaihanga Uku within a broader NZ ceramic context. So, there has been much interaction with the wider NZ ceramic community and also internationally. These interactions have been mutually beneficial and led to enhanced understanding and engagement through workshops, exhibitions and publications.
It is the shared love and alchemy of the clay transforming process that moulds relationships and fuses connections. At the end of the day, it’s the people who are important.
“Ki mai koe ki ahau – he aha te mea nui? Māku e ki atu ki a koe – he tāngata! He tāngata!”
“If you should ask what is the most important thing I will reply – it is people! It is people!”
What I learned from writing a book about Ngā Kaihanga Uku
I undertook writing this book as a pledge to my friend Manos and out of a need to record the history accurately. I naively envisaged it as a relatively straightforward project that I would accomplish relatively easily and quickly over approximately a year. However, as things progressed, the sheer grind of supporting my recollection of events, biographies, articles and photos with substantiating research became overwhelming, not to mention countless communications. So, I was extremely grateful for the help and expertise of Dr Anna Marie White of Toi Māori and the Te Papa team – Olivia Nikkel and Nicola Legat. Unforeseen challenges arose from totally unexpected directions and just when one was dealt with and I thought we had crossed the finish line, another challenge would emerge. But we made it in the end and after three years and thousands of emails we celebrated with the launch at Te Papa.
Ngā Kaihanga Uku: Māori Clay Artists - A celebration of the revival and mana of Māori ceramic art by Baye Riddell (Te Papa Press, $70) is out now.
