In te ao Māori (the Māori worldview) myth and actuality are a tangled tale. Often difficult to reconcile in contemporary times, elements of te ao tipua (the supernatural world) continue to be central to the beliefs of many Māori communities today. In recent decades such beliefs have become a source of confusion creating tension between customary expectations and contemporary sensibilities.
Ara-i-te-uru is a major new sculptural installation by artist Israel Tangaroa Birch which looks at these intersections between mythology and ideology, where legend becomes legacy. Referencing some of the major collaborative works created by Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert, such as Aramoana–Pathway to the Sea (1991) and Blackwater (1999), Birch uses light and shadow to explore relationships between things in the physical world of te ao mārama (the world of light) and their metaphysical counterparts in te pō (the world of darkness).
To explore this idea Birch looks at taniwha as entities which have the paranormal ability to exist in between these realms. Customarily taniwha held an important position within te ao Māori as guides or guardians who often appeared to forewarn of imminent disaster. In a reversal of roles, Māori have in recent times become the protectors of the taniwha, causing controversy in the media and testing public opinion and tolerance of Māori worldviews.
In 2002 Transit New Zealand narrowly averted disaster by rerouting part of State Highway 1 near Meremere away from the domain of a taniwha named Karu Tahi after Ngāti Naho expressed concerns about the dangers of building on this site. Fourteen months after construction was completed the Waikato flooded swamping the lair of Karu Tahi. In the same year, Northland iwi unsuccessfully protested against Ngāwhā prison near Kaikohe being built on an old swampland kainga (home) of a taniwha named Takauere. In 2007, after ignoring the taniwha warning, the Government admitted the prison was sinking into the ground and now requires major structural repairs. The Auckland rail tunnel project currently proposed by Mayor Len Brown is also encountering issues with a Ngāti Whātua taniwha named Horotiu who lives in an ancient river which now flows beneath the Town Hall and runs along Queen Street out to sea.
In the installation Birch invokes his own ancestral taniwha from the Hokianga harbour, Ara-i-te-uru (also known as Āraiteuru meaning veil or path in the west), re-embodied as a river of light rippling across the water-like surface of a mirror. Here Ara-i-te-uru is visually present within the space yet is essentially a non-physical translucent manifestation. In this way Birch presents a tangible representation of an ethereal entity, inviting people to step out of linear understandings of the world and indulge in the mysteries of the unknown.
