He is dyslexic. At the moment he is learning te reo Māori and has trouble with it in English script. By using the “letters” he has created, he has no problem with reading and pronunciation.
“My father was a storyteller,” he says. He was a big reader, and when he told stories from books, Brigham realised there was something magical contained in the text.
“So for me, things like carvings, tukutuku, and those sorts of things, there are stories in them.
“We do have a written text. It is contained in our whakairo, tukutuku/arapaki, wharenui, in the stars, in the wind, in nature, in mōteatea and waiata to name just a few. Like writing; mōteatea, whakairo, tukutuku transmit knowledge. There is language there.” They are also beautiful, he says.
Also beautiful are the “letters” Brigham has invented and represented on large and small tiles.
He has created 20 pū (letters) into three categories.
He says it probably really started when he rearranged the order of the vowels, from the sharpest to the roundest sound, ending up with them in this order: e i a o u.
He calls the “vowels” Pū oro waka. “Before colonisation I would not have called them ‘vowels’,” he says. “Pū oro waka, is literally, the letter (pū) that carries (waka) the sound (oro).”
“These were created by looking at the shapes of my lips when I made them. My lips make the same shape with the O and the U, however my lips, when exaggerated, point down for the O and up for the U, thus depicted in the placement of the line.”
He has been approached by a fellow who has created a keyboard for Klingon, and he would be interested in making a keyboard for Brigham’s “letters”.
Brigham says if Māori had a written text before colonisation, it probably would not have looked like what he has imagined, but it also certainly would not look like English/Latin script.
He also says that different dialects (mita) would therefore have different “letters”.
“I think this is incredible,” says Sarah Narine, Space proprietor and curator. “Brigham has hit something ... we don’t believe anybody’s thought of it. In this day and age, that is so rare to come across an original idea. It’s so refreshing, and that’s the feedback I’ve been getting.
“Brigham has a way of having so many levels to the work. They’re aesthetically pleasing and beautiful to look at, but there is so much more, and the more you give the work, the more it’s going to give you back. That’s why I love having Brigham here.”
His consonants he has called Pū oro mata.
“The straight lines (including the angles in them) represent the shape my lips make when these sounds are said; the top curve is the roof of my mouth and the curves under these are shapes my tongue makes when I say these sounds. For example, for R, you will see two curves under the roof of my mouth, this represents the slight rolling of the tongue.
“I have called them letters (pū) at the tip (mata), or face (mata), meaning the front.”
There is so much more and Brigham explains it logically and well.
He has created the letters as large tiles on the wall, using epoxy resin in plywood; and has also created “letters” in smaller versions, like Scrabble tiles.
His exhibition, Momotuhi ngutu (Lip font), is worth a look and a ponder. It really is more than art. It closes on Friday, so there is limited time in which to see it.
