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Abstract
On Wednesday, March 25 at 11.59 pm, 2020, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern placed Aotearoa (New Zealand) into lockdown to shelter citizens from the catastrophic impacts of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Entire households were placed in isolation, permitted only to travel locally to access food or medical supplies. The media messaging was resoundingly clear: stay at home. This contemporary context contributes to an analysis of sculptor Michael Parekowhai’s The Lighthouse: Tū Whenua-a-Kura (2017), a full-scale model of a State House building typology. State Houses have been lauded as symbols of Aotearoa’s ongoing commitment to the principles of egalitarianism. First produced in the 1930s under the leadership of Michael Joseph Savage’s Labour government, they were intended to house those unable to afford their own homes. However, in recent years this form of social housing and, in particular, those who have access to it have been the subject of vociferous political debate. A current housing shortage has exacerbated matters as exponential increases in accommodation costs have coincided with increases in homeless numbers in the city. These developments make Parekowhai's public sculpture particularly timely. Sited at the terminus of Queens Wharf on the Waitematā Harbour in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), the sculpture contains a single room and a single man: the eighteenth-century English explorer Captain James Cook. He is larger than life-size and adopts a penitent deportment. Cook's heroic legacy has been questioned by revisionist historians and Māori scholars who have identified a plethora of negative impacts colonization had and continues to have on indigenous communities. Cook is now under house arrest, quarantined in a prototypical State House, appearing to reflect on his actions. This paper examines how the artist assiduously reinvents this housing typology as a beacon on a prime piece of real estate. The familiarity of the exterior form is belied by the sculpture's provocative interior contents, where the artist manipulates an elaborate suite of figurative and abstract forms rendered in an array of dazzling surface treatments to shed light, both literally and metaphorically on troubling aspects of our colonial history and access to the provision of land and housing in Aotearoa. Here, at the end of the wharf, we lose our footing; we have to consider where we stand in relation to our colonial past and our contemporary relationship to whenua (land). As calamitous events unfold on the global stage that make us all turn toward our domestic interiors, the conceptual ideas that underpin The Lighthouse: Tū Whenua-a-Kura make one consider what it means to stay at home now in Aotearoa.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 In New Zealand, the very first state house was built at 12 Fife Lane, Miramar, Wellington in 1937. An official opening was held and Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage helped the new tenants move a table into their new home, among a crowd of excited onlookers. Newspapers captured the historic moment, and the event was broadcast on national radio. There were other opening ceremonies for other state housing subdivisions across the country when the first house had been completed. See O’Brien (2015).
2 John A. Lee quoted in Walker (2017), p. 11.
3 The term Pākehā refers to a New Zealander of European descent.
4 The term marae refers to “courtyard – the open area in front of the wharenui, where formal greetings and discussions take place. Often also used to include the complex of buildings around the marae.” See Moorfield (2011), https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3664
5 “Papakāinga refers to “papa” or Papatūānuku as the ancestral earth mother and “kainga” as the village communal living environment. Today the term is used to define both an ancestral land base as well as a collection of dwellings occupied by Māori connected by common kinship or kaupapa, located in reasonable proximity to each other and normally relating to a marae or other communal area or building.” Hoskins et al. (2014).
6 The guide recommends low-density housing, with ample outdoor space allowing provision for communal gatherings, gardens, and play space for tamariki (children). The location of communal buildings or Marae close to the establishment of the Papakāinga serves to galvanize the relationships between the residents. Different family compositions need to be considered in these housing developments, including kaumātua (elders), single parents, extended whānau, and single couples. Ecologically sustainable materials are recommended for buildings to evidence respect for the environment (atua). Generously sized living and sleeping spaces, in addition to large garages, are also preferred to accommodate extended whānau. Kitchens that can be closed off from living spaces are preferred so that families can bring their deceased home as part of the tangi process before burial. The provision of more self-contained private zones for tamariki is also encouraged. A care and attention to the design of the entry to the house to be welcoming to manuhiri (visitors) is essential and should be positioned on the sunny side of the site. This design detail references pre-contact whare (houses), where “The common use of the mahau (front porch)…indicates the essential social role fulfilled by this space, allowing people to maintain contact with the wider environment from a secure, sheltered refuge” See Hoskins et al. (2014).
7 See Coughlan (2020).
8 “The levels HNZ were testing to were 10 times lower than they should have been, and based on guidelines not meant to be used for anything but former labs. The agency spent $100 million on what the report describes as mostly unnecessary tests, and took 900 properties out of its portfolio in the middle of the biggest housing shortage in a generation, chasing tenants through the Tenancy Tribunal to pay for “contaminating" properties. See Cooke (Citation2018a, Citation2018b), Meth house myth: Why hundreds of safe homes were left empty in the middle of a housing crisis.”
9 “Gluckman also noted that mold was a much larger health risk to tenants of state houses than meth residue. Peter Gluckman in Cooke (Citation2018a, Citation2018b) The meth house is a myth: There's ‘no risk’ from drug smoking residue, Govt report finds.”
10 “Akl state tenants to be paid to move.” 2016. May 25, 2016. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/304762/akl-state-tenants-to-be-paid-to-move.
11 “$5000 moving grant 'laughable' without work." 2016. RNZ (May 26), 2016. Accessed August 10, 2020. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/304806/$5000-moving-grant-%27laughable%27-without-work.
12 See Moorfield (2011) https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/74 Date accessed September 7, 2020
13 See http://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2017/02/the-lighthouse-michael-parekowhai/
14 In accordance with the Maramataka (the Māori lunar calendar), the first rising of Matariki (also known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters) and the rising of the new moon signals the beginning of the Māori New Year in June in the Southern Hemisphere. Matariki's visibility is used to predict the next season's crop: the brighter the stars, the warmer the weather, and more successful the crop. The new year is celebrated by whānau gathering together to remember their ancestors, share kai (food), stories, dance, and play games. It also marks a time of remembrance for those that have died away the previous year. There was a belief that those who passed were transformed into stars shining down from the heavens.
“Matariki: The Māori New Year.” Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Accessed September 15. https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/maori/matariki-maori-new-year/what-matariki.
Additional information
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Rachel Carley
Rachel Carley (Te Rarawa) is a scholar whose research investigations are located at the intersections between interior design, visual art, ceramic, gastronomic and pedagogical practices. The research trajectory includes histories and theories of the interior with a particular preoccupation with color and surface treatments as they relate to spatial, painting, textile, ceramic and sculptural practices. Recent research has sought to investigate the adaptive re-use of interior architecture in sub-optimal conditions and to interrogate how rationing methodologies grounded in indigenous frameworks can guide the development of evocative design propositions at postgraduate level. Email: [email protected]