Maureen Lander Explained

Maureen Lander
Birth Place:Rawene, New Zealand
Known For:Arts
Training:Elam School of Fine Arts
Module:
Embed:yes
Thesis1 Title:In Sites : the predicament of place : personal perspectives and intercultural viewpoints on aspects of site related art
Thesis1 Url:https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/5323
Thesis1 Year:1993

Maureen Robin Lander (born 1942 in Rawene) is a New Zealand weaver, multimedia installation artist and academic. Lander is of Ngāpuhi (Te Hikutu subtribe) and Pākehā (New Zealand European) descent[1] and is a well-respected and significant artist who since 1986 has exhibited, photographed, written and taught Māori art.[2] She continues to produce and exhibit work as well as attend residencies and symposia both nationally and internationally.[3]

Education

Lander began learning weaving with noted Māori weaver Diggeress Te Kanawa in 1984 and spent many years researching fibre arts.[2] The title of her 1993 master's thesis was In Sites: the predicament of place: personal perspectives and intercultural viewpoints on aspects of site related art.[4] In 2002 she was the first person of Māori descent to gain a Doctorate in Fine Arts at a New Zealand university.[5]

Career as an educator

Lander worked as a teacher before attending Elam School of Fine Arts. From 1986 she worked as a photographer for the University of Auckland's Department of Anthropology.[5] She taught Māori fibre arts over many years, mainly in the Māori Studies Department at the University of Auckland where she was a Senior Lecturer in Māori Material Culture. In 2007 she retired from university lecturing.[2]

Work

Lander was first introduced to muka (flax fibre) by noted weaver Diggeress Te Kanawa in 1984, when she went to stay several times with the senior artist at Ohaki Maori village, near Waitomo and learned the basics of preparing materials and techniques such as whatu (finger twining).[8] Her end of year installation at Elam, titled Te Kohanga Harakeke ('The Flax Nest') included a structure covered in milled flax in the shape of a massive inverted nest, which sheltered a young harakeke (flax) plant.[8]

Lander's first public art exhibition was as part of the group exhibition Karanga Karanga at the Fisher Gallery (now Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, Auckland) in 1986.[8] She describes her three decades working with muka as a 'journey of discovery'.[2] In a recent artist statement Lander said:

I was seduced by the beauty and magic of muka. My first public installation in 1986 – E kore koe e ngaro he kakano i ruia mai i Rangiatea in the Karanga, Karanga exhibition – featured whenu (warp threads) and aho (weft threads) that I had carefully prepared to make my first korowai. Instead, I suspended them in an ethereal cloud-like formation over a swirl of flax seed.[2]

In 1998 art historian Priscilla Pitts wrote that Lander's combination of 'conventional university art school' study and training with traditional Māori weavers was reflected in her work:

Though much of her work is a response to weaving arts, Lander seldom actually weaves – at least, in the works she exhibits in gallery spaces. Rather, she uses, often to astonishing effect, the materials used in traditional Maori weaving and dying. These include pingao and feathers, but most of all harakeke (New Zealand flax) in all its forms – its leaves, its handsome flower and seed heads, the seeds and muka (the fine silky fibre obtained from the leaves). With these she combines materials from the Western world.[9]

Pitts gives Lander's 1994 work This is not a kete, made for the exhibition Art Now at the former Museum of New Zealand (now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) as an example of the way her work combines traditional Māori crafts and Western sculptural or installation practices.[9] Lander's work plays on René Magritte's famous painting Ceci n'est pas une pipe with a woven kete (flax basket) placed on top of a plinth with the words 'This is not a kete' inscribed on it. More kete were arranged on the floor of the gallery and dramatically lit. Pitts writes

'Here, in the context of the art exhibition, 'practical' objects – simple woven flax bags – are elevated to the status of art objects. ... However, this particular art exhibition was located in what was also an ethnography and history museum, within which the collection, cataloguing, and display of things like kete divorces them from their cultural, spiritual and/or utilitarian contexts and transforms them into artefacts.[9]

In 2006 Lander was one of fifteen New Zealand artists, most of Māori and Pacific Island descent, who were invited to take part in the Pasifika Styles exhibition by making site-specific works throughout the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge that responded to objects in the museum's collection.[10] For the exhibition Lander reworked two previous commissions, This is not a kete and pieces from Mrs Cook's kete, a 2002 collaboration with Christine Hellyar at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University.[11] Lander also made new pieces, including the site-specific installations Airy-Theory Artefacts (woven objects suspended in front of a screened window) and Tane Raises His Eyebrows (a crescent-shaped weaving placed over a decorative wooden door lintel).[10] She also made a piece titled Crown Grab Bag for the exhibition, a large woven crown placed on a royal purple silk pillow with gold tassels. In the publication accompanying the exhibition, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology curator Anita Herle wrote

The work references the New Zealand Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004, which empowered the New Zealand government, 'the Crown', to override tribal rights to pursue customary claims to the foreshore and seabed through the courts. Lander's crown is delicately woven from a variety of fibres, including plant materials that grow along the foreshore – the creation of the crown itself is thus a subtle but defiant act of re-appropriation. Shells and fishing hooks from the museum's collection are placed on the base of the case. Strands of pingao fibre, stitched into the fabric lining at the back of the case, form inverted U-shapes representing the raised eyebrows of Tane (god of the forest). According to Māori legend, following a dispute between Tane and Tangaroa (god of the sea) Tane's eyebrows were flung onto the sand dunes, which mark the liminal space between the forest and the sea. Here Lander connects contemporary political conflicts to legendary battles.[10]

Responding to objects and taonga held in cultural institutions' collections remains a strong feature of Lander's work. In a 2015 exhibition at the National Library of New Zealand (a collaboration with Christine Hellyar and Jo Torr) Lander made a number of works relating to works in the library's art and archival collections.[12] Her piece Hariata’s War Garb is inspired by Joseph Merrett's 1846 watercolour The Warrior Chieftains of New Zealand.[13] The portrait depicts Hone Heke, the chief Kawiti, and Heke's wife Hariata. Hariata is shown wearing a woven sash unlike anything Lander had seen before. Researching her own family history, Lander found descriptions of Hariata written by her great-great grandfather James Johnston Fergusson. One document describes Hariata leading 700 men; another as being ‘young, tall, and rather goodlooking’, wearing ‘a tartan dress with red sash slung around her shoulders like a shepherd’s plaid’. Lander recreated the sash for the exhibition, along with a number of other pieces.[12] [14] In a review of the exhibition art historian Jill Trevelyan noted that Lander drew on her own experience learning weaving under Diggeress Te Kanawa to produce the works Rongo's samplers, a reimagining of the first works produced by a new practitioner.[15]

In 2017 Lander began a tuakana/teina (mentor/mentee) relationship with Mata Aho Collective, a group of four wahine Māori (Māori women) artists.[16] In 2021 their collaborative work Atapō was awarded the biennal Walters Art Prize.[17]

In 2023 Maureen Lander, in collaboration with artist Denise Batchelor and composer Stìobhan Lothian, created the online artwork Hukatai ~ Sea Foam as part of the international art project World Weather Network.[18] Lander and Batchelor came together to monitor the hukatai (sea foams) through walks on the shoreline of Te Hokianga Nui a Kupe, the Hokianga Harbour, in north-west New Zealand. These walks were documented through a series of lens-based observations which became a fibre installation as part of the 2023 Te Tuhi exhibition Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear curated by Janine Randerson.

Selected exhibitions

Lander began exhibiting her artwork in 1986.[19] Having exhibited both nationally and internationally, Lander currently enjoys exhibiting with other artists in the small communities around the Hokianga where her ancestors lived.

Selected publications

Honours and awards

Residencies

Personal life

Lander is of Ngāpuhi, Te Hikutu, Irish, Scottish and English (Yorkshire) descent.[49]

Further information

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Loading... Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa . 2024-04-05 . collections.tepapa.govt.nz.
  2. Web site: Maureen Lander - Biography. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
  3. Web site: Towards the Morning Sun. Cambletown Arts Centre.
  4. Lander . Maureen . 1993 . Masters thesis . In Sites : the predicament of place : personal perspectives and intercultural viewpoints on aspects of site related art . ResearchSpace@Auckland, University of Auckland . 2292/5323.
  5. Web site: Maureen Lander. Auckland Art Gallery.
  6. Web site: Lander, Maureen. Massey University Library.
  7. Web site: Lander, Maureen. The University of Auckland Library.
  8. Pitts . Priscilla . Her Story: Maureen Lander in Conversation with Priscilla Pitts . Art New Zealand . Autumn 2019 . 169 . 46–53.
  9. Book: Pitts. Priscilla. Contemporary New Zealand sculpture : themes and issues. 1998. David Bateman Ltd. Auckland. 1869531698.
  10. Book: Raymond. Rosanna. Salmond. Amiria. Pasifika Styles. 2008. University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; Otago University Press. Cambridge and Dunedin. 978-0947595159.
  11. Ethnographic collections in the hands of contemporary artists: The Joachim Schmid Collection and Mrs Cook's Kete in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Kim. Seong Eun. August 2007. Vienna, Austria. The World Under One Roof: Past, Present, and Future Approaches to Universality in Ethnographic Museums.
  12. Web site: Amery. Mark. Tails that bind. The Big Idea. 19 June 2015. 3 June 2015.
  13. Web site: [Merrett, Joseph Jenner] 1815–1854 :The warrior chieftains of New Zealand. [1846]]. National Library of New Zealand. 19 June 2015.
  14. Web site: Review of 'Tell tails' on Nine to Noon, National Radio. Radio New Zealand National. 19 June 2015. 3 June 2015.
  15. Trevelyan. Jill. Telling Tales: Maureen Lander, Jo Torr & Christine Hellyar at the Turnbull. Art New Zealand. Spring 2015. 155. 90–93.
  16. Web site: Foster . Chris . Maureen Lander - Inspiring Generations . The Big Idea . 3 December 2023.
  17. News: Williams . Matariki . A tuakana teina relationship . 3 December 2023 . ArtZone . 8 August 2021 . en.
  18. Web site: TeTuhi . 2024-01-26 . tetuhi.art.
  19. Web site: Maureen Lander – Biography. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. 27 June 2016.
  20. Web site: Maureen Lander Aho Marama Strings of Light . Christchurch Art Gallery . 3 December 2023.
  21. Web site: The Walters Prize 2021 . Auckland Art Gallery . 3 December 2023 . en . 15 May 2021.
  22. Web site: Maureen Lander: Flat-Pack Whakapapa. The Dowse Art Museums. 13 July 2017.
  23. Web site: The Delicate Balance of Wobbling Stars: An exhibition by Maureen Lander. The Big Idea. 13 July 2017.
  24. Web site: Te Wā Tōiri: Fluid Horizons. Auckland Art Gallery. 26 May 2015.
  25. Web site: Tell Tails. National Library of New Zealand. 26 May 2015.
  26. Web site: Flag it!. Depot Art Space. 7 January 2015.
  27. Book: Willis. Kenny. Whetū, Whenu, Whenua: Stars, Strands, Land – A Contemporary approach to weaving. 2013. Lopdell House Gallery. Auckland. 9780987659767.
  28. Web site: Te Taumata Exhibition Series. Northart Gallery.
  29. News: Artist Inspired by Local Landmarks. 7 January 2015. The Big Idea, Te Aria Nui. 2011.
  30. Book: Morrow. Margaret. O'Sullivan. Vincent. Lander. Maureen. Hotere Country: An exhibition featuring Ralph Hoter's 'Song of Solomon'. 2009. Village Arts. Hokianga. 9780473156541.
  31. Book: Kauwau Group. Kauwae 09 : a series of three exhibitions from the Kauwae Group, a national collective of Māori women artists. 2009. Kauwae Group. Manukau.
  32. Book: Packer. Ann. POST stitch: an exhibition of contemporary New Zealand stitched work. 2008. Lopdell House Gallery. Waitakere. 9780958289535.
  33. Book: Reed. Michael. Stevenson. Karen. Conversations Across Time: Whakawhiti Körero. 2009. Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. Christchurch. 9780908668724.
  34. Book: Raymond. Rosanna. Salmond. Amiria. Pasifika Styles: Artists inside the museum. 2008. Otago University Press. Dunedin. 978-1-877372-60-5.
  35. Web site: Palm Lines. The University of Auckland Library.
  36. Book: Lander. Maureen. Wood. Brian. Sullivan. Robert. Shade House. 2004. Whangarei Art Museum. Whangarei. 0958252300.
  37. Book: Evans. Miriama. Ngarimu. Ranui. Heke. Norm. The art of Māori weaving : the eternal thread = te aho mutunga kore. 2005. Huia Publishers. Wellington. 186969161X.
  38. Book: Hellyar. Christine. Lander. Maureen. Mrs Cook's kete : artists' installation at the Pitt Rivers Museum, 2 November 2002 to 27 April 2003.. 2002. Pitt Rivers Museum. Oxford, England.
  39. Book: Mason. Ngahiraka. Ellis. Ngarino. Kisler. Mary. Purangiaho: seeing clearly: casting light on the legacy of tradition in contemporary Maori art. 2001. Auckland Art Gallery. Auckland. 0864632452.
  40. Book: Lander. Maureen. Maihi. Toi Te Rito. TwoTrees. Kaylynn. Haze: Maureen Lander, Toi Te Rito Maihi, Kaylynn TwoTrees. 1998. Auckland Art Gallery. Auckland. 0864632215.
  41. Book: Lander. Maureen. Pitts. Priscilla. Maureen Lander : ngā uri o r̄ahiri : Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 25 October 1997 – 16 February 1998.. 1998. Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. New Plymouth. 0908848242.
  42. Book: Hubbard. George. Johnston. Alexa. Jahnke. Robert. Korurangi: New Māori Art. 1996. Auckland Art gallery. Auckland. 086463210X.
  43. Sayles. Jane. In Search of Wonderland: Art Now at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Art New Zealand. 1994–1995. 73. 62–65.
  44. Te Ao. Ngapine Tamihana. Pu Manawa: The Heart on the Margins. Art New Zealand. Spring 1993. 68. 58–61.
  45. Web site: Alter/Image. City Gallery Wellington. 25 December 2015.
  46. News: Kerr-Lazenby . Mina . Māori art group Mata Aho Collective awarded prestigious Walters Prize . 3 December 2023 . Stuff . Stuff . 9 August 2021 . en.
  47. Web site: Queen's Birthday honours list 2020 . 1 June 2020 . Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet . 1 June 2020.
  48. Web site: Nancy Brunning honoured at Te Waka Toi Awards . Creative New Zealand . 5 December 2019.
  49. Book: Tamati-Quennell. Megan. Megan Tamati-Quennell. Pū Manawa. 1993. Huia Publishers. Wellington. 0-909010-00-5.

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