“Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art” was not the retrospective one might expect from an institution designed to house 19th-century European art. Nigel Borell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea), ex-curator of Māori art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, transformed both the institution and the art-historical record in Aotearoa New Zealand with this expansive exhibition, featuring more than 300 artworks by 111 Māori artists from the 1950s to the present.

In a Māori worldview, time does not follow a linear trajectory, and neither did “Toi Tū Toi Ora.” Rather, the exhibition progressed through the Māori creation story, beginning with Te Kore, The Great Nothingness. In a dimly lit space, constellations of light explode into spiralling mirrored patterns on the black glittered surface of Reuben Paterson’s (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi) video Te Pūtahitanga ō Rehua (2005). On the opposite wall, Robert Jahnke’s (Ngāi Taharora, Te Whānau a Iritekura, Te Whānau a Rakairoa o Ngāti Porou) sculptural Whenua Kore (2019) uses one-way mirrored glass and circular neon lights to form a seemingly endless, bending tunnel. It is as though one is staring into the void itself, an impression compounded by the swirling reflection of Te Pūtahitanga ō Rehua in the center of Whenua Kore.

After Te Pō, The Perpetual Night, the world became filled with light and life through the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku. In Lisa Reihana’s (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tū) video projection Ihi (2020), Tāne, stifled by his parents’ embrace, pushes Ranginui (sky father) from Papatūānuku (earth mother). The reverberant soundscape builds in intensity, while slow motion emphasizes the dancers’ powerful movements. As Papatūānuku meets the viewer’s gaze, it feels like an acknowledgement of all her children—every Māori descendant.

These darkened rooms ushered visitors into a new space, emerging into Te Ao Mārama. As the world burst into light and life, stars were scattered to the chest of Ranginui, akin to how the profusion of Māori stories, concepts, symbols, and materials spread across the rest of the exhibition. Viewed from the front, Atapō (2020), by Maureen Lander and Mata Aho Collective (Te Hikitu, Te Roroa, Ngā Puhi, Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. Te Ākitai Waiohua, Te Ahi Waru, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Hine), features layers of mesh hung from the ceiling to form an enveloping blackness pierced by two diamonds of light. The diamond cut-outs reference a weaving pattern that symbolizes protection. Pink and green threads criss-cross outwards from their points, resembling a continuous infinity symbol, or strands of DNA. Whakapapa (genealogy; to place in layers) and the Māori weaving technique, whatu, are closely related through language and metaphor.

Atapō pays tribute to Hine- nui-te-pō. Before she was guardian of the underworld, she was Hine-tītama, maiden of the dawn, who is honored behind the installation’s first section. The diamond symbols are repeated in mesh hung from a horizontal diamond- shaped frame. Muka fiber dyed with colors of the sunrise is woven into the edges, evoking a korowai (cloak). Ātapo was made by the hands of many women, who invoke this story of transformation and regeneration to acknowledge its significance in the empowerment of Māori women.

A great strength of Māori visual languages is their ability to hold cultural knowledge in layers of meaning: not all knowledge is for everyone. One could spend years peeling back the layers in “Toi Tū Toi Ora,” an exhibition about collectivity, wellbeing, resistance, love. For Māori like myself who have grown up in the Pākehā world, the exhibition kindled the joy of reconnecting with whakapapa, and made room for the manifold experiences of being Māori. At a time when institutions are recognizing the “value” in Māori art yet still restricting which of our stories are told, Borell curated a euphoric exhibition by and for Māori. In “Toi Tū Toi Ora” we see ourselves, our creation story, our taonga tuku iho (treasures handed down by the ancestors)—and we have all those who have kept these fires burning to thank for it.

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