Mitchell Manuel

21 Mar - 17 Apr

Sat 28 March, 1 - 3pm

How to digitize a Porowhita (mandala) Tartan?
A drop-in workshop facilitated by Mitchell Manuel

Sat 11 April, 1 - 2pm

Artist Talk with Te Awanui Reeder and Mitchell Manuel

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Toi Pōneke is excited to present Tartan meets Koru by Toi Pōneke Art Centre’s 2024 Visual Arts Residency recipient Mitchell Manuel, opening on Saturday 21st March 2026.

Mitchell Manuel, a Kuki Airani, Māori, Scottish, Tahitian and Portuguese digital artist based in Pōneke, presents ‘Tartan Meets Koru’, an exhibition exploring his Scottish Clan heritage through a Pasifika lens.

Manuel’s journey reconnects with his Clan Brown ancestry from his mother’s Kuki Airani side. His inspiration stems from childhood summers in 1980s Māngere, witnessing the spectacle of pipe bands and women’s marching teams at the Māngere Domain - their precision, kilts, and music a vivid contrast to the Māori and Cook Islands cultural performances he also knew.

“As an adult, I sought to weave these experiences together.” Research into his family history revealed a narrative shaped by the Scottish Clearances and the 1851 Emigration Advances Act, which prompted tens of thousands, including his great-grandfather George Outher Brown’s forebears, to leave for Australia and beyond.

“I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of Scottish and Gaelic culture to give meaning and depth to the images and my art,” says Manuel. His conversations with many Māori and Polynesian people in Aotearoa who share Scottish or Irish roots informed this fusion. With over an estimated million New Zealanders claiming such heritage, the exhibition reflects on these intertwined whakapapa lines.

Artistically, Manuel employs digital vector programs to meticulously weave common tartan threads and clan colours. He then integrates deconstructed and reconstructed koru - a fundamental Māori symbol - into the tartan patterns. This process creates a precise, ‘mathematically accurate’ fusion, where each element respects the integrity of both cultures, symbolising their historical and familial convergence.

‘Tartan Meets Koru’ is the direct result: a visual dialogue between Highland history and Pasifika identity, where digital craftsmanship binds distinct genealogies into a shared image.

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other exhibitions

see other past exhibitions in the gallery archive