Thoughts from the committee
When Chelsea Winstanley (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi) decided to make a behind-the-scenes documentary about Auckland Art Gallery’s 2020 landmark exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora, it seemed perfect for her homecoming from Hollywood. As developments at the gallery complicated the film’s focus, the underlying challenges to Māori artistic sovereignty only became more tangible.
Toi Tū Toi Ora was the largest exhibition of Māori artists in the gallery’s history with over 300 artworks by 110 artists covering a period from the 1950s to the present. However, the path to opening night was fraught with underlying tensions that became increasingly apparent under the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary subject of Winstanley’s film is curator Nigel Borrell, staunchly advocating for the sovereignty of Indigenous artists right through until his eventual resignation.
TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty is about the inherent contradiction of advocating for decolonisation from within a colonial institution. It serves as a document of the ways that Winstanley, Borrell and each of the artists whose work featured in the exhibition grapple with this contradiction.
“I came past Merata Mita’s footage and there was a swarm of people in front of her work and I just took that in, and people’s transformation. Transformation of people’s understanding, people’s hearts, you can never underestimate the impact that that has on us as a nation and as a country.” – Ngaahina Hohaia, This Too Shall Pass