Time, memory, whakapapa _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

Over the summer, City Gallery Te Whare Toi presents its latest exhibition Meditations at its temporary home in the National Library Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa until the 1^st of March. Curated by Israel Randell and featuring four artists, it explores time and the creation of personal archives.

Contemporary photographer Lily Dowd presents a performance-based installation that captures memories of daily life. Melbourne artist Moorina Bonini (Yorta Yorta/Woiwurrung) exhibits for the first time in Aotearoa with a work that aims to create a counterpoint to traditional, white gallery walls. In Areta Wilkinson’s (Kai Tahu) work, past, present, and future occupy the same space. Te Ara Minhinnick (Ngāti Te Ata) works with whenua; an act of re-representation where whakapapa begins in the land and extends to the artist and her whānau in a statement of tino rangatiratanga.

I caught up with Randell, whose collaborative te ao Māori approach brought the artists together early. “This created a spiralled way of thinking that reflects the themes of the exhibition: an active archive, and a collapsing, resisting, and slowing of time through embodied practices”.

What is the intention of the exhibition?

Meditations is an exhibition about time, memory, and whakapapa. The intention is to look deeply at materiality and how it might challenge the notion of an archive. For example, I lay in the shade by Lily Dowd is an installation of lumen and contact prints that fade through repeated exposure to the light. So by the end of this exhibition these images will potentially disappear completely. I think that is a bold proposition to have a work that is active and is determining its own agency in this space.

How do the different artworks and mediums work together in the space?

From outside the gallery, you will instantly be drawn in by Te Ara Minhinnick’s work titled ONEE. It is made up of onepuu (iron rich sand) sourced from the shores of Kariotahi in Waiuku, where Minhinnick is from. Moorina Bonini’s work Banarru (ashes) presents cultural marks that use charcoal to mark the gallery walls – alongside this are contemporary marks that use text to interrogate western institutions. Her work shows alongside Areta Wilkinson’s work Ka Taka te Wā – Time Passed, which uses age-old stone implements to imprint the stone’s surface into fine metals. Together with Lily Dowd’s work mentioned above, the space feels open and allows the viewer to contemplate deeply the many layers imbued within each of the works.

What do you hope viewers take away from the exhibition?

I hope viewers will fall in love with the simplicity that these materials offer; I hope they become curious about these artists and their practices. I also think this show provides a respite for contemplation, reflection, and recalibration. But this show is to be experienced in real life – over the course of the exhibition some of the works will change, fade, become richer, and that can only be experienced in person.