MAUNGARONGO TE KAWAI would say the main emotion would be pain. I think the joy comes from the bright colours. It comes from the energy of nature and it comes from pulling the energy of nature into yourself. My people didn’t have hospitals or doctors, they just had vitality. So I’m trying to get as much life force into the work using sparkles and colours and texture.

I think it’s a privilege to be an artist, especially when you’re working with public funds and a public gallery. I think you’ve got a responsibility to uplift people and make them feel good. I mean, most people go to an art gallery on the weekend. They just want to have an experience. So I try not to project my own trauma onto other people.

MTKIt’s not just me, it’s my people. It’s where they’re at. I mean, we’re the bottom of all the terrible statistics. We only own five percent of our own land in our own country. We’ve survived so much. I want to celebrate how much we’ve survived. 

Sometimes when you do protest art, and you paint yourself as a victim, it means that the other people you’re painting about have won, in a way, because they want you to be their victim, they want you to be broken and dull, with your volume turned down. But my wish for my people is that they are big and bold and bright and healthy and vital, like how we were before we got colonised. My work’s almost like a vision board in that way.

MTKJust seeing how their lives and their culture were destroyed, but the essence of the people is still there. That love for family, love for land, love for ancestors. To see what they’ve survived. And, in my lifetime, I mean, my childhood is completely unrecognisable to the kids now. When I was a teenager it was illegal to be Gay. It was illegal for women to own houses. It was illegal to be a sex worker. All the fun stuff was illegal! It’s changed so much, but I remember those days, the mass homophobia, all of it.

MTKYeah, a lot! But at different stages, I suppose. There were a lot of differences and quite a lot of confusion, as well, about what was going on around me. I don’t know what to call it, but maybe it’s like a magic seed that’s in all Indigenous people that makes us want to explore our Indigeneity. 

That was special, to sit in that shared space of exploration and just be Indigenous. I loved how the land, how nature dominated. I grew up in a culture where we were always trying to dominate nature and there was just no way she was having it out there in the Arctic Circle!

MTKTo be honest, it was the politics of skin colour in New Zealand compared to Norway. There’s such a racial divide, and I really wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting in a room full of white men or being in their houses or being in their spaces and feeling safe and comfortable, but I had to question all of that when I came to Norway. You know, Sámi are fair skinned, and it was so lovely. It was so lovely to be in a politically neutral zone, but it took me a whole month to get my head around the realisation that I was safe.

MTKI learned so much. The vibration of the land and the breath of the land, the flow of the rivers. I got to work with Sámi artists Marte Lill Somby and Laila Labba in Kárášjohka, and learn all about the Sámi Parliament. I mean, that’s something that, for my people, is just a dream. So I got to see what’s possible with the Sámi university and the museum.

MTKThere is a group of Māori people who live in Kárášjohka, so they saw the poster at the local supermarket and they all came along. It was good to have them there. I’d be talking about my ancestors meeting and they could see them. I felt like I wasn’t on my own. 

And I got challenged a couple of times. There was a man there. He was Sámi and he thought that some of the work looked scary and I had to say, no, they’re not scary. But he was really challenged. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. If we went into the forest and saw a big, totem pole-type carving we’d go and rub its belly and say hello. We were never taught that they were scary. It’s somebody’s ancestor. It’s not an ‘oogie boogie’ monster, but he was so challenged. He was asking why the woman’s eyes were so big and I  just said that so often in my life women are told to put their eyes down, look at the ground, don't say anything. They never get to be the ones in the middle of the story, so I’ve given them the eyes that are just blatantly staring out. Because that’s my little protest, we never get to look.

MTK… and also just being stared at by a woman. He just could not handle it at all. Which was the whole point. 

Another thing about being in Kárášjohka was the light. For Māori, everything comes from the light and light had its own evolution. It was just the genealogy of the universe. So it was good to see a different light just as spectacular during the day as in the night!

MTKVery stark!

MTKA lot of Māori culture has been lost. But there’s also been a huge resurgence in the last ten or more years. So, there’s always hope. In the 90s some people still thought that Māori culture was going to die out and now it's stronger than ever. I feel so lucky to be a Māori every single day. We have our own pretty awesome people.

MTKIt’s fantastic. It’s a completely different universe, the Indigenous universe, it’s one that feeds you on all levels, it fulfils you.

For example, for me, in a totally decolonised, indigenised version of my culture, it's just totally normal to be Gay. And we’re a part of every family. We’re an important part, you know, we’re our sister’s longest relationship with a male. The ones that help the nieces and nephews, and buy the school clothes, or whatever. We have responsibilities in a family.

MTKYeah, we’ve got to remember those rights were fought for. And in Aotearoa, we had a treaty with the English colonists that meant our culture was equal to English culture, we were equal, but they had a completely different interpretation. So overnight, women lost all their rights to their land after signing this treaty, and Gay people became criminalised. It took 150 years of fighting to change the law. And right now, it’s the most right-wing government we’ve probably ever had. They want to review this treaty and start a constitutional debate. It’s going to be really interesting. The artists now have to step up. 

We stopped being organised and we stopped, as artists, protesting and having protest exhibitions or poetry nights within the last twenty years. And I think it’s time to step back up to the plate, because a lot of the protests that are happening on the street, they’re just not safe. They’re throwing bottles, they’re throwing bricks, they’re attacking the police, so it’s not actually safe for people to get out there and protest on the streets because that’s not the kind of protest we want to have. Largely, Māori protests have historically been really, really peaceful, and children and old people come first.

MTKI think I fit in really well. Just existing is a political statement. Just getting out of bed, saying, I’m Gay, I’m Indigenous, and I’m an artist with my own opinions, that is quite subversive for society. So on that level—to work, and work, and work, and work as much as you can, and be an artist, fill out the forms, do the talk, walk the walk—that’s the most political statement you can make. I have my own freedom, I have my own sovereignty, I have my own opinion, I make my own way.

So I could just put a scribble on a piece of paper and hang it up and it’s already political. But I make my quilts as beautiful and colourful and powerful as possible. I look at a pile of fabric before I make the quilt and think, what’s the biggest “Fuck you” I can make with these clothes?

Even on the news in New Zealand, if the newsreader greets people, opens the news in the Māori language, there’ll be so many complaints and attacks and just hate for my culture, so I do the biggest, most beautiful, brightest “Fuck off” as my political statement, because that’s what would really hurt them, to see us on our best day ever.

MTKCheers!