A journey around New Zealand is the inspiration behind an incredible exhibition that explores not only the ancient perspectives of pre-colonial times but also tackles the current political debates around the role of Te Tiriti in our society.

Multi-disciplinary Niue-Māori artist Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tumutumu, Niue – Liku, Alofi) spent two weeks on a yacht expedition that travelled around Aotearoa in March 2023 and has collated her works that will be shown in Christchurch this weekend.

Infusing her traditional heritage artforms using natural resources and pigments collected from the earth as paint, Cora-Allan sketched the flora and fauna onto hiapo, capturing Aotearoa through an indigenous view.

A year later, her drawings have transformed into magnificent artworks to be displayed at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū in the exhibition aptly named Encountering Aotearoa.

Cora-Allan says her works resonate with how the first Māori migrants would have seen the taiao (natural environment) of Aotearoa from the moana.

“I think about what the landscape would have looked like, the sounds of the manu and how loud it would have been and all the kekeno (fur seals) lying on the rocks. Thinking about the karakia and the karanga that were called out to the whenua.

“Just that moment in time when our tūpuna had come to this place and had that first initial moment.”

Cora-Allan Ōtautahi (Christchurch) from the series While at sea 2023. Whenua, kāpia ink, hiapo, brass. Courtesy of the artist.

Encountering New Zealand’s political landscape

The exhibition first saw light in August 2023 and was predominantly based around her observations from the voyage.

This time around, Cora-Allan is hugely motivated by how the political atmosphere in Aotearoa is affecting Māori outcomes, like the coalition government’s decisions to remove Te Reo Māori from public services names, scrapping the Māori Health Authority, ACT’s proposal to redefine Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and most recently cuts to the Ka ora, Ka ako Healthy School lunch programme.

Cora-Allan says this is a “stronger show than the last” as it includes new works showcasing her Māori pride, a feeling she wants her children to have when facing political adversity.

“After our new dummy government, e maha ngā kare-ā-roto! (There are so many emotions!) They pull on my experience of Aotearoa right now and they’re beautiful.

“They symbolise the moment and my feelings of how I feel to be Māori, I’m just so proud and when my kids come and see the show they’re gonna see, ‘I’m so proud to be Māori’ and they're gonna be like, ‘yeah we are!’”

Cora-Allan will hold hiapo and whenua-pigment workshops as part of her Encountering Aotearoa exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. Photo/Holly Burgess

Using natural pigments

The whenua-pigments used throughout the pieces are unique to their geographical origin and Cora-Allan paid particular attention to the different customs iwi have in place for resource collection.

Whenua-pigments are natural and sustainable resources from land and earth pigments which can include trees, bark, and leaves, clay, decayed insects and animal bones, and more.

Cora-Allan is constantly finding the balance of her dual ethnicity but through her art finds ways of encompassing the intertwining whakapapa within Aotearoa.

Each landmark was drawn using specifically localised pigments, the background coloured with whenua-pigment from her own ancestral Māori lands. And the hiapo canvass - a reminder of the strong Pacific connection.

While on board she did a series of paintings called While At Sea, illustrating each landing place using botanical motifs, while large scale work such as her 17.6 metre piece Ko ao, ko ao, ko Aotearoa, the largest whenua-painting she’s created, was done post-trip.

“There’s some crossings where the moana was really rough so I don’t recommend painting fine lines on a boat, but I didn’t even think about that, in my head I was like ‘I’ll be fine’.

Cora-Allan Ko ao, ko ao, ko Aotearoa! 2023 (installation view, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2023). Whenua and kāpia ink on birch plywood panels. Courtesy of the artist. Photo/Justin Spears.

Her Niue father’s experience

Accompanied on the voyage by pāpā, Kelly Lafaiki (Niue – Liku, Alofi) who recorded notes and pictures in a journal, and artist Emily Parr (Ngāi Te Rangi, Moana, Pākehā), who captured the personal interactions of father and daughter in two moving-image works that sit alongside the exhibition.

Cora-Allan says she and her pāpā are close and the journey had its funny moments and new learnings.

“We enjoy being in each other's space, we shared a room and he’s not a small man so he actually ended up rolling off the bed. I gave him my bed which is fine but you pay all that money to end up sleeping on the couch ‘coz you gave your dad the bed',” she jokes.

“It was a mean as experience, he got asked to be the person that takes the wero (challenge) at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds performance. He’s never done anything like that. My dad is a very quiet man, he’s not Māori, he’s Niue.”

Cora-Allan says her pāpā is so proud of that moment and has stuck the rau (leaf/token of peace) he received from the wero in his journal at home.

Cora-Allan Encountering Aotearoa 2023 (detail of installation view, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2023). Cora-Allan’s sketch books and travel journals. Photo/Justin Spears

A nature-centric approach

The voyage focused on sites visited by James Cook and the Endeavour in 1769, but for Cora-Allan and her pāpa, their journey draws parallels with that of the ship’s Tahitian navigator Tupaia and his nephew Taiata.

And so Cora-Allan’s pieces don’t include any man made or colonial structures, instead she reimagines the sites and sights encountered 255 years ago.

“I didn’t purposely leave them out, they just weren’t a part of my conversation. They weren’t even a part of my whakaaro (thinking). I was purely focussing on that arrival part and even what the stones might’ve looked like when and where the waka would have pulled up.

“My practice really focuses on indigenous whakaaro and experience. I don’t mean it to be, it just does.”

Cora-Allan Encountering Aotearoa 2023. (Installation view, Dunedin Public Art Gallery) Sketch books, pigment containers, tools. Photo/Justin Spears

Encountering Aotearoa responds to the legacy of colonial mapping and recording practices, building on Cora-Allan’s research into the artists and botanists aboard the Endeavour during its maiden voyage.

Christchurch Gallery’s Pouarataki Curator Māori Chloe Cull says the body of works is a celebration of identity and a reassertion of connection to place.

“After researching the artists and botanists that were on board the Endeavour, Cora-Allan reflected on the way they collectively created an image of this country that forever changed its place in history,

“As a response, Cora-Allan has created a significant body of new work that also considers the whenua from the vantage point of the moana, but from an indigenous perspective.”

The future of hiapo is in the past

With the revival of heritage artforms comes great responsibility of sustainability and in the coming weeks Cora-Allan teams up with a carver and hiapo artists from Niue High School to research and create a resource of hiapo.

As highly acclaimed as she is, Cora-Allan remains humble in always being a student to ancestral knowledge.

“As a practitioner I’m always learning, it’s like when you go to kapa haka there’s always bigger fish around you and that’s just how you learn. I often get called a tohunga (master) in this space. I know a lot, yeah, but I always feel like I’m learning everyday.

“I feel like the practice ages with you as well.”

Encountering Aotearoa will be showing at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from 13 April to 25 August 2024 then head to Waitangi Treaty Grounds in November 2024.