Holly Walker
22 October - 18 November
Holly Walker’s mahi toi reveals fragments of her cultural experience of being Pākehā.
Identifying as Pākehā and as Tangata Tiriti comes with responsibilities to the landscape, environment, to people and the past. The artist navigates an ‘in-between’ state which asks questions of her Pākehā identity such as where have I come from? Where am I going? while making emotional and physical connections to the whenua. She draws parallels between colonialism and capitalism, and their treatment of the environment and women. The power of the female body in symmetry with nature is at once visceral and beautiful. The artist states ‘being a nude woman outside of a private setting, is a political act’ Holly’s practice is a therapeutic process of re-connecting to her identity through performance, sculptural works and kōrero with the whānau.
Holly describes the works in the exhibition currently as reflections on where the artist is within her creative practice, responding to learning and evolving in her Pākehā identity. The works evoke ideas of displacement, conflict, disorientation and contemplation, it is an effort to gather pieces which reflect the past, not only from the point of when her Pākehā ancestors arrived in Aotearoa, but also before this whenua. The show includes initial experiments drawing from the artist’s Celtic heritage through knots and motifs. The Celtic designs have been used in Christian and Medieval iconography, often to adorn monoliths and structures which mark history in locations’. The Celtic knots and spirals become conceptually important in the context of Aotearoa as they look familiar to kowhaiwhai and takarangi spirals often seen on waka or pātaka. Māori motifs, from the artist’s personal Pākehā position, have always been more familiar and recognisable than ‘triskelions’ or 'Celtic spiral' designs. Holly contemplates her relationship to cultural mark making, and critically considers what imagery and associations inform her Pākehā cultural lense.
Currently includes found objects foraged, recovered, recycled - all to reference the sense of recurring and the cyclical relationship to time. The inclusion of Celtic knots and spirals reflects back to spinning or spiralling, not quite at a beginning or an end, but trying to mark a point. Currently acknowledges movement, disorientation and the ever changing process when learning, especially about identity. Currently is an interrogation of colonisation and settler identity as Holly states:
“It is an effort to reclaim through accountability and a sense of belonging within myself and here - my first home Aotearoa. It is a gathering of information and unearthing of truths. I wanted this collection of objects, ideas and performance to demonstrate a point in my practice, where I am experimenting and learning to articulate an understanding of and connection to my Pākehā identity in relation to my reality and spirituality. It is not the mahi of Māori to teach Pākehā how to be and become Pākehā. Pākehā all have access to realise we live on the whenua of Māori, observe culture and often participate in Te Ao Māori spaces. From there we can configure and own the realities of how we got here, how we fit into the landscape and then how we relate to Māori and tauiwi in Aotearoa. This exhibition is my experimentation and spiritual/creative demonstration of how I am learning to look at being Pākehā and working toward choosing to embody the realities to my Pākehā cultural nuances.”
Artist kōrero with Holly Walker in conversation with Tūī Howard
Sunday 30 October 11am
In the Gallery space Holly and Tūī will host a kōrero about how they use their creative practices, spirituality and relationship to the environment to create places to speak about their identity and whakapapa.
