Ā Mua: New Lineages of Making

Featuring works by over 20 makers based in Aotearoa, this exhibition explores the nature of craft, including the handmade, and how it is responding to changing attitudes to the world around us.

The title of this exhibition, Ā Mua, is a Māori term used to describe “a time to come”, and reflects the fluid nature of Indigenous time where the past, present and future intersect, interchange and co-exist. This idea is explored through the knowledges, practices, objects and makers in the exhibition that engage with traditions spanning hundreds of years, multiple cultures and a vast variety of techniques, skills and materials. It is this embodiment of diversity that has become a hallmark of the increased connectivity of recent times, and points to the changing nature of what we now understand as craft.

Neke atu i te 20 ngā ringatoi mahi ā-rehe nō Aotearoa i whai wāhi mai ki tēnei whakaaturanga. Kei te tuhuratia ngā āhuatanga o te mahi ā-rehe, waihoki, o ngā mahinga ā-ringa me te huringa o ngā waiaro o te tangata ki tō tātou ao.

Ko te ingoa o tēnei whakaaturanga ko Ā Mua, arā, e whakaahua ana tērā ingoa i “te wā heke“. Ko te tirohanga tērā o ngā Iwi Taketake ki ngā rerenga o te wā, i runga i te whakaaro ki te pūtahitanga, ki te whakawhitinga me te nohotahitanga o te wā mua, o te wā tū me te wā heke. E tuhuratia ana tēnā ariā i roto i ngā mātauranga, i ngā mahi, i ngā taonga, otirā, e ngā ringatoi e toro atu ana ki ngā tikanga tuku iho o uki, ki ngā ahurea maha, ki te whānui hoki o ngā tikanga toi, o ngā pūkenga me ngā rawa e puta mai ai tēnei whakaaturanga. Ko te whakatinanatanga tēnei o te kanorautanga, he tohu o ngā tuituinga tāngata kua hua mai i te ao hangarau i ēnei rā. E tautohu ana hoki ēnei mahi i te huringa o ō tātou whakaaro e pā ana ki ngā mahi ā-rehe