Motukā is a transliteration of motor-car. This work brings together three generations of Māori women.
The image from left to right, features her mother; Caroline Johnson, her grandmother; Hōrina Ranapia Johnson and Horina’s dear friend; Jane Alan.
The audio component (available via a QR code displayed in our window) shares a memory with her grandmother: a recording of Hōrina singing E papa.
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Vicktoria is a multi disciplinary designer of Māori Niue heritage, based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She creates glyphs as mnemonics, these marks help her to remember her reo. She calls them; Tāmata Reo which is a collective of pictographs. Extending indigenous forms of writing and functioning as an educational tool. Tāmata Reo seeks to encourage positive attitudes towards Māori Pacific language through art and design. Taonga
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The In*ter*is*land Collective: a tagata Moana (Pacific, Oceanic people), queer-led arts/creative/activist group based in London, UK and Aotearoa.
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Above Motukā by @vicktoriajohnson we fly the flag Tino Rangatiratanga
The flag is a protest over the inconsistencies of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between Maori Rangatira and the British Crown.
The wording between the English and Maori text is different, with the English version proclaiming the sovereignty over the people & land and the Maori one only to the governorship of the land.
Since then there has been continued inequality in the quality of life and opportunities for Maori people. With documented cases of institutional racism and discrimination, breaches of human rights of the Maori people and disproportionate numbers of Maori people in prisons, unemployed and living impoverished lives.
This is not a unique story of the lives of indigenous people across the globe being subjugated in their own countries by colonial powers.
We stand in unity with the intersectional struggles of all people.