Page 261 - Constructing Craft

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But Pākehā also had to accommodate Māori craft within the studio craft movement.
An event a year after the craft industry report was presented confirmed that the
acceptance of Māori craft, both ancient and by inference, contemporary, by New

Zealand society was a growing reality. On 10 September 1984, an exhibition of
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taonga called Te Maori: Maori Art from New Zealand Collections, opened at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition was shown in another
three American cities. In the United States it was seen by a total of 621,000 people,

before returning to New Zealand to be exhibited in the four main cities under the title

Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai ‒ the return home. Pākehā had often treated Māori craft,
if not with disdain, then with indifference, therefore the reaction in America was a

surprise. Ten years later, Peter and Dianne Beatson observed that the response to

the works in the United States ‘brought home to many New Zealanders the wealth
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of our indigenous heritage’. The exhibition was the culmination of years of effort
by Māori to have their craft and art recognised at the same level as Pākehā craft,
and perhaps treated with even more respect, given its status as the art of the

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Tangata Whenua or the first craft of the nation. A conversation began that
stimulated interest and new developments in Māori craft.

Te Māori exhibition: Te hokinga. The Return Home. This photograph shows exhibition
staff at the Auckland City Art Gallery just before its opening there. New Zealand Herald.

Constructing Craft