This country is in the process of decolonisation, taking an honest look at where we are, how we got here and where we’re going. Following global trends, attempts are being made to right the wrongs of indigenous disenfranchisement and honour te tiriti promises of partnership, participation and protection.

But it’s awkward. Few deny the injustices of the process of colonisation, but the imperial mindset is so ingrained in our hearts and minds, institutions and practices, that forging an equitable path forward can feel arduous and opaque. Pākehā paralysis – fear of saying or doing the wrong thing can lead people to ignore the issues entirely.

These issues play out in art as in every other arena.

The best of art holds a mirror to society, reflecting and commenting on the cultural zeitgeist, offering the chance to see the world through another’s eyes. 

This is the gift of the mahi of Putaanga Waitoa (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou, ‘Avaiki Nui, Pākehā) artist and activist. With the magic of her camera lens she empowers Māori, showing them to the world through indigenous vision. 

“It is important that we normalise Māori being on the forefront of telling Māori stories. Throughout our history, pākehā have played the white saviour as if we do not have the ability to do this ourselves, as if we need saving, as if we need a voice. However pākehā cannot see into a world they do not inhabit, yet they are still first and foremost celebrated for Māori art, and storytelling,” she explains. “Indigenous people are the original story tellers, and it is time we are celebrated in the same capacity as non Māori.”

Her 2020 exhibition, Who am I to wear moko kauae, challenged stereotypes to elevate the mana of the wāhine in her portraits. However, her choice of hero image was deemed too confrontational for prime gallery position. “Pākehā can be affronted by authentic indigenous art, they prefer something that looks Māori but they can relate to, because it’s looking down on us, from their point of view,” she muses.

Wāhine, a touring exhibition showing here as part of the Arts Festival, curated and photographed by a French female anthropologist, rang alarm bells for Putaanga. Looking at Māori with an anthropological eye feels undignified to her. “It feels like an extension of colonial postcard portraiture, for pākehā eyes, by pākehā eyes. Why can we not celebrate Māori for carrying such a kaupapa but rather celebrate, hold space, fund a pākehā who appropriates it?” she asserts. For Putaanga, the fact this woman’s work is elevated, while her mahi was pushed out of sight lest it offend, is a continued act of cultural colonialism. 

Audiences get a pleasing experience of ethnic flavour without having to come into contact, physical or financial, with the culture they are admiring on their walls. For her, tangata whenua should come first, to be given the opportunity to tell their own stories from their unique perspective, without filtration or sanitisation for a pākehā audience. If audiences want Māori content let it come from Māori.

This was precisely the issue raised by a mural by Erika Pearce, a pākehā artist from Auckland who painted Hastings’ library wall with twin profile portraits of a Māori and a Muslim woman surrounded by a swirl of indigenous symbols. The intention behind the piece, solidarity between cultures in the wake of the Christchurch attacks, was lost in a storm of controversy. 

Hastings District Council’s Pou Ahurea (Māori Advisor), Charles Ropitini (Heretaunga), was surprised to see his niece portrayed, in an image taken from her kapa haka rōpū. “She was never asked, I don’t know if Erika spoke to the culture or to people involved,” says Ropitini. The artist maintained all references were licensed stock photos, but this then raises questions about who acquires, buys and sells imagery of indigenous people. Legally she is in the right but morally this has the feel of a colonial land grab – just, only by the rules created by a system designed to oppress.

More than the portrait, it’s the patterns to which Ropitini objects. “I can tell that a Māori hasn’t done the artwork because of the placement of the korus. Someone just placed a whole heap of curly things on a mural… We read kowhaiwhai like our language and I can’t read that because it’s not ours. It doesn’t follow Māori conventions of kowhaiwhai.” The mistake is particularly egregious as Heretaunga, via Toimairangi, the local Māori art school, is the leading centre of kowhaiwhai work in the country.

Toimairangi, incidentally, do not believe Māori art should exclusively be done by Māori. They teach traditional methods to anyone who wants to learn, regardless of ethnicity. Unsurprisingly, as for pākehā and every other ethnicity, Māori are not a hive mind. They hold a range of nuanced opinions on issues of entitlement and culture. The difference here is an artist taught traditional methods can execute work with a level of understanding that will never come from copying googled stock imagery.

A Kahungunu artist had intended to paint a mural as part of the Culture Canvas project but dropped out, last minute, leaving Pearce’s design to be rushed through the consultation process. By then organisers were embroiled in complaints regarding another mural in the festival, Poihakena Ngawati’s portrait of internationally recognised Kahungunu artist George Nuku. Some found the work aggressive and intimidating, a charge often levelled at indigenous artists by those who know they have good reason to be angry.

Notably, many public complaints about Pearce’s mural were from pākehā, upset that their culture went unrepresented. When we examine the very real, systemic erasure and dismissal of indigenous culture in the past versus the present pervasiveness of colonial culture these fears seem laughable, but when we are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. 

Backlash is a function of white fragility. Cherry picking history to emphasise the bits that make our ancestors look good, while dismissing or diminishing that which makes our legacy awkward leads to skewed thinking. Shame is uncomfortable and the natural human reaction is to push it away. 

The infamous incident in Havelock North’s playground, where a woman was asked to leave for wearing moko kauae, sparked a surge of supportive protest. But up in the hills, rumours were circulating that the wāhine Māori in question had been asked to leave, not because of her cultural marking but because she was smoking. This is backlash in motion. It is easier to reinforce harmful stereotypes of Māori health and parenting than to accept one of our own could have acted out of prejudice.

Curator of Napier’s MTG, formerly of Hastings City Art Gallery, Toni McKinnon sees backlash as a function of “ignorance of history. They have something to lose and they know it. I feel it. I wonder what change means for my kids. Will they be able to get a job? It’s a bizarre psychology.” But like the banning of books that discuss slavery in American schools, this attitude values potential harm to pākehā above actual harm done to Māori for generations. 

McKinnon advocates for honouring Te Tiriti by establishing genuine co-governance. Keeping pākehā in leadership roles will not instigate the kind of change necessary. “For Māori, the pain of the past comes through generations and generations. Being a coloniser – I’m not being guilt ridden – surges through the way you see things, all your value judgments, what you think is good. How you perceive the world comes through generationally. You are afflicted by coloniser mentality. The only way to make change is to hand back power to those who can deal with it properly. 

“Pākehā think they have something to lose but they don’t realise they have so much to gain. We’ll be in a better place. It will be a better world. We’ll start chipping away at health, education, incarceration, all those negative stats in which Māori are overly represented. Hand back the resources. Then they’ll sort it.”

The flipside of backlash and white fragility is white guilt. Guilt can be used as a weapon by some Māori to shame pākehā into renouncing privilege. But guilt and shame are barriers to real change, more likely to foster resentment, to further race baiting. More productive would be to acknowledge past injustices, recognise their consequences and make positive, affirmative action to encourage and achieve equity.

Charles Ropitini is making such changes, advocating to make Hastings a city where both Māori and pākehā feel a sense of belonging. Many of the motifs we associate with Art Deco are actually revivalist, taken from ancient indigenous cultures. Twenty-three years ago, Council decided to remove all reference to indigenous art forms in the city’s architecture because it was uncomfortable; they didn’t know how to speak to it. Rather let people believe their buildings have purely colonial origins.

Ironically, Landmark Square, whose plaque only refers to the good works of the Landmark Trust in preserving landscape, history, architecture and art in public places, is in fact the only pā site in Hastings’ CBD obtained in a fraudulent land grab. Ropitini believes educating everyone, Māori and pākehā alike, on the indigenous roots of their city, and incorporating Kahungunu art into new municipal additions will increase civic mindedness and understanding between cultures, combatting the feeling that Māori are not welcome in the city streets.

Taking ownership of public spaces when one is naturally disenfranchised is the remit of graffiti artists, in this country disproportionately Māori. Some of the most talented Māori artists in this region use the street and the train yard as their gallery, their way of getting art to the world. 

The fact that these rangatahi are criminalised, denied paint and seen as hooligans, rather than given space for their gifts to be fostered is a failing of the state and a legacy of colonisation. It never occurs to most that their work might be valuable. A just system would allow such artists to thrive, let them be seen and heard, rather than them resorting to forcing their way into the public eye where their work is maligned.

The long tangled roots of colonialism run deep through all Aotearoa’s institutions, even through the tendrils of our minds, for we are shaped by our environment. The true process of decolonisation has to acknowledge, examine and dismantle these structures, without and within. Just changing your email sign off to ‘ngā mihi’ and proceeding with imperial practices is akin to placing a sticking plaster over a gaping social wound. Change needs to be systemic, continuous, and evolving. 

Even the way we conduct these conversations warrants examination. One of the many refusals of an on-record interview for this piece was accompanied by the assertion that this is not how Māori kōrero. The very act of interviewer quizzing subject for information is steeped in colonialism, invoking a certain power dynamic, anathema to te ao Māori. Wānanga and hui, gatherings in appropriate cultural settings, with kai, following tikanga, are productive spaces for conversations to happen. 

The most destructive space for nuanced kōrero must be online. While the concise format is primed for the rapid sharing of ideas, social media is a machine in which people are the product. Algorithms designed to reward combative behaviour eschew genuine understanding and connection in favour of bun fights – contests over who can manufacture the most outrage. Whipping up followers via viral Tik Tok into a like-button smashing frenzy might be soothing but is ultimately self-serving and is not going to change hearts and minds. 

Neither is this a topic that can be addressed comprehensively in a single article. Rather this is just the start of a continuous kōrero that should permeate our words, deeds and minds. Systemic change is necessary and inevitable, so get on the waka or get left behind.