Page 111 - Constructing Craft

Two developments in particular helped Māori increase their cultural capital. The first

was the art scheme launched by Dr Clarence Beeby, the Director of Education, in
1945 and implemented by Gordon Tovey, the Supervisor of Arts and Crafts at the

Department of Education, during the 1950s and 1960s. The scheme introduced
Māori art and craft to a new generation of Māori and Pākehā students. The

development was important because it was the first sign that the subordinate
cultural group (Māori) had been able to overcome the symbolic violence of

exclusion. The impact of the change was slow but by the 1980s most New

Zealanders were aware that Māori art and craft played a central role in Māori
society and some undoubtedly believed that it was an important part of New

Zealand’s culture. However, the educationist Richard Harker added a note of

warning in 1980: ‘Too often, where Maori elements have been added to the
curriculum they have been divorced from their cultural context and incorporated in
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terms of the pedagogy and evaluation systems of the dominant group.’

The second development that raised the profile of Māori art and craft was the 1984
Te Māori exhibition. Featuring traditional Māori artwork, the exhibition at first toured

the United States in 1984 and was shown in New York, St Louis and Chicago.

Some commentators were enthusiastic in their assessment of the exhibition. ‘It was
a great success and returned to tour New Zealand, again to applause, and a
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swelling of Māori pride.’ A review in Art New Zealand claimed that, ‘Western
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distinctions such as art-artefact-craft had been exploded by the exhibition.’
Clearly, Māori arts and crafts could no longer be relegated to the dusty shelves of
the anthropology section of museums.

However, some within Māoridom thought that the upgrade had been superficial.
Tipene O’Regan, for instance, thought that all Te Māori achieved was to have art

and craft items wrenched ‘from the grip of white coated ethnologists – from cups of

tea in the basement [of museums], to wine and cheese upstairs. … the difference
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between art and artefact is that art has flasher huis [meetings].’ Furthermore, the
selection of work by a curator of ‘primitive’ art and its location in the Hall of Primitive
Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural

History in America did not erase the perception of Māori art/craft as ethnographic
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artefacts ‒ although it had approval from traditional Māori authorities.
Constructing Craft