COMMODE




Collective Struggle
Flags, Activism and Mana Motuhake: On the importance of Diane Prince and Tame Iti
Hana Pera Aoake, 2026

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When you start digging through archives and books, staring at digitised records or reading newsletters and newspapers by activist groups and coalitions such as the Waitangi Action committee and Ngā Tamatoa in Aotearoa from the 1970s and ‘80s, you start to realise artists were always there. The creative work of Māori artists is inseparable from their political work. Two artists whose work exemplifies this duality are Diane Prince (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Whatua and Ngāti Kahu) and Tame Iti (Ngāi Tūhoe, Tainui, Te Arawa). Both senior artists, their work has often been dismissed as a series of ‘stunts’, but I would argue that the gestures of violence and civil disobedience embodied in their work stem from thinking about the repeated and constant violation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi since its signing in 1840. The common thread that binds Māori political work and so much cultural production is the living consequences of Te Tiriti o Waitangi being continuously breached and Māori whenua gobbled up in exchange for ‘progress’. Prince has argued that the, “…evolution of Māori political development - and the identification of Māori[1] as a distinct political group - really began following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.”[2]

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Prince is a multidisciplinary artist, weaver, activist, writer and educator, who began showing her artwork in the late 1980s, after many years of work within the radical Māori protest movement. She is a living legend, whose work was shown in the groundbreaking exhibitions, ‘Māori Art Today (1986-7), Mana Tiriti: The Art of Protest and Partnership, Korurangi: New Māori Art’ (1995) and ‘Patua: Māori Art in Action’ (1996). In ‘Korurangi: New Māori Art’ curated by George Hubbard at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Prince made the installation, ‘Flagging the future: Te Kiritangata – The last palisade’ (1995). ‘Flagging the future: Te Kiritangata’ criticised the loss and confiscation of Māori land by the Crown over the last century. ‘Flagging the future: Te Kiritangata – The last palisade’ was a mixed media installation work featuring weaving, found objects, dried harakeke flowers (Kōrari), and had a New Zealand flag lying on the floor stencilled with the words “Please walk on me”. During the course of the exhibition, this invitation to walk on the flag was heavily criticised and debated, and one visitor eventually laid a formal complaint with the police. The gallery was advised that the work was in breach of the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act (1981), and that the flag would need to be removed or the gallery and artist could face prosecution. After consultation between Prince and the gallery in late 1995 it was decided that the entire work be removed, a decision interpreted by the art community as censorship. Prince saw no difference between artmaking and activism, stating that “I am not an artist. The flag is just a protest work suitable for display.”[3]

After the exhibition opened, Prince faced increasing pressure to remove the New Zealand flag from her work or face prosecution for violation of the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act. In Section 11(1)(b), “within view of any public place, uses, displays, destroys, or damages the New Zealand Flag in any manner with the intention of dishonouring it”. Prince removed the entire installation, because if she had not done so both herself and the gallery would have faced legal prosecution. Prince removed the work and it was replaced by a photograph and a sign explaining its absence and a suggestion that she might make another work for the exhibition. Prince, gifted her modified New Zealand flag to Iti, who, with her permission, burnt it.

Internationalism: Indigenous Embassies

In 1990 Prince presented ‘Te Hono Ki Waitangi - Tent Embassy at Mana Tiriti’ at City gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. The work was made from kōrari - the flower stalk of the Harakeke plant - fastened together to resemble trigonometric surveying posts, but also a cluster of tent-like structures. Painted signs carry phrases such as ‘Racism reigns supreme in Aotearoa’. This allusion to surveying is deliberate, because early stages of colonialism in Aotearoa in the 19th century began with the building of fences, which in turn demarcated the borders of property.[4] Land, previously held in common by various hapū, was now transformed into private property that was required by law to be maintained through fences.[5[ Despite signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 to ensure the rights of Māori lands and to have Māori control of Māori things, the continued alienation of Māori land sat in contrast to the intention Māori rangatira had in signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Prince is echoing the 1972 occupation of the Māori embassy set up at Parliament by Ngā Tamatoa following the presentation of the Māori Language Petition (Te Petihana Reo Māori), and the Tent Embassy set up by more radical factions (led by Ngā Tamatoa) following the Land March in 1975. Prince’s Te Hono Ki Waitangi - Tent Embassy, serves as a reminder of this history, but also that Ngā Tamatoa and many within the Māori protest movement were inspired by Aboriginal activists in Australia, who on January 26, 1972 sat on the lawn in front of Parliament House in Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra) and set up a ‘tent embassy’.

January 26 ‘Australia Day’ is for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a day of mourning and often referred to as Invasion Day because it marks the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove on January 26 in 1788. In 1972 four Aboriginal men (Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey) drove from Redfern in Sydney to Canberra. Opposite Parliament House they planted a beach umbrella and erected a sign that read ‘Aboriginal Embassy’. They made this trip in response to the then Australian Prime Minister, Billy (William) McMahon who refused to acknowledge Aboriginal Land Rights. Through a loophole in a federal law, they were able to occupy Parliament, as long as there were less than 11 tents. This continues to be the longest continuous protest for Aboriginal Land Rights in the world, with the Embassy still active today. The word ‘embassy’ was chosen to demonstrate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people never ceded sovereignty. The use of ‘tent’ was twofold; it speaks of both the living conditions of Indigenous Australians reduced to poverty in their own whenua and the practical ease of setting up an umbrella or tent. In July, the embassy was raided as 150 police officers violently moved in to forcibly tear down the tents and remove the activists.

Gary Foley, another important Aboriginal activist and scholar (who was present at the Embassy in 1972), has argued that the absence of an Aboriginal embassy in Canberra demonstrates the ways in which Aboriginal people are treated like aliens on their own land. This experience of being an alien in your own country is a notable link between radical Indigenous activism in Aotearoa and in Australia. For first nations people it was land alienation and the writing of legislation that enabled this land theft, as well as cultural and social marginalisation. Foley was present in the 1975 Hīkoi mō te whenua and spoke at a rally before the All Blacks and Springboks game in Kirikiriroa in 1981, he also had longstanding friendships with Ngā Tamatoa members John Ohio and the late, Dun Mihaka. The strength of so many political movements of this time was the ability to build solidarity across borders and learn from one another.

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In a seminal photograph taken in 1972 captured by Māori photographer, John Miller (Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tāwake ki te tuawhenua, Te Uri Taniwha, Ngāti Rēhia, Te Whiu), we see three ionic marble columns with a banner strewn across it with the words “Māori control of Māori things”. To the left of the central column standing on the steps beneath we see a long haired Tame Iti. It was at the Māori embassy that Tame Iti met Prince's former-partner, the late activist and writer, Te Ringa Mangu (Dun) Mihaka. Miller also has photographs of Gary Foley

During a kōrero convened by filmmaker and writer, Tainui Stephens with the artists and activists Richard Bell (Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang communities) and Tame Iti, Stephens noted that, “Both tent embassies in their respective countries were acts of strategic genius. They were created by frank and fearless young people sick of the status quo. They declared that the Indigenous tribes of these lands would no longer be aliens in their own country. These elevated political protests generated a movement of thinkers that in the years to come would lead on to generations of doers.”[6] The embassies mirror the ways in which our people always worked through issues by sitting together, speaking and listening. Bell and Iti’s work dually remind us of the importance of political artworks. Bell’s ‘Embassy’ which consists of a canvas tent and protest signs was initially created in 2013 to act as a satellite to the original. It has toured the world travelling to Amsterdam, New York, Jakarta and the Sydney Biennale, reflecting and building dialogue about the ongoing struggle for Aboriginal rights. Iti’s 2024 installation, ‘Te Maungārongo (Peace)’, shown at Māoriland Film Festival in Ōtaki, reminded me of a watercolour I have seen of a giant hākari stage in the Bay of Islands in 1849 and a 1890 lithograph of hākiri (and hui) given by Waikato Māori and some Pākehā held near Ohinerau and Te Kōpuke, present day Remuera. Both hākari had erected structures with billowing blankets and white linen.

Flags

At Waitangi in 2024 Iti led a hīkoi of thousands of activists, including many associated with Toitū Te Tiriti. Each carried a white flag. Some flapped aggressively in the wind, but many of these white flags drooped. I witnessed the performance through the sphere of social media reshared over and over by different Māori influencers, TikTok political commentators, artists, musicians and writers. It appeared staged and empty, a gesture towards making profit through merchandise. However, when I have discussed what it was like from those that were there, it seemed more genuine and imbued with what Awatere wrote in 1984, “... the collective experience of Māoridom itself will be the determining factor in any political movement, not the individual.”[7] The silence was also powerful. I spoke to a number of people who joined the hīkoi, some were Pākehā, Māori, young and old and they all spoke of the silence and gracefulness of the collective group moving with the sun. Social media is anything but silent. I prefer the quiet of rustling through archives and listening to rumours and anecdotes from our elders. Experiences mediated through a filtered screen often feel too fixated on the optics of visibility than genuine political engagement with the people who need it most. Social media is too clean, edited and polished. Protest feels at risk of becoming a series of slogans that can be aestheticised and commercialised. Sometimes you just have to be there in person.

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I’m always interested in learning the etymology of words and so I google “flag”. The word flag means to “flap about loosely” or from Old Norse flaka “to flicker, flutter, hang loose”. The origin of flags is largely unknown, but historians believe that through the Chinese trade of silk various empires began to create flags using symbols that related to a collective identity. The identity was required in part in order to impose imperial rule over others. The oldest dated flag is made of bronze. During the age of “discovery” flags were customary and later became a legal requirement used to denote a ship’s nationality. Within Aotearoa the signing of He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene in 1835 was both a declaration of sovereignty and a response to the maritime chaos caused by an influx of European colonisers. A year earlier, a group of Northern rangatira began using the United Tribes of New Zealand on trade ships originating from New Zealand. The flag of New Zealand was agreed to be used by a group of rangatira in 1840 following the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Consisting of a Union Jack, which features the red cross of Saint George of England, with white edging, that is superimposed on the red saltire of Saint Patrick of Ireland, superimposed on the saltire of Saint Andrew of Scotland. It was first used in the proclamation of King James VI and I of Scotland and England in 1606. The union jack sits on blue with the four stars my people called Te Punga, while the Ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy thought these bright stars in Crux were part of the constellation Centaurus, but it’s mostly known as the southern cross.

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In 2005, in a piece of powerful political performance art, Tame Iti shot this same flag, which later turned out to be an Australian flag, that he had substituted for a New Zealand flag. This happened during the Waitangi negotiations between the Crown and the Tūhoe people in Tauaarau marae in Rūātoki. The Crown representative entered in a carriage as smoke filled the air. A series of warriors screamed out in defiance, as Iti dressed from the waist down in a kilt patterned blanket, working boots and square hat that was fastened under his chin, stepped forward with a rifle. Iti then proceeded to shoot the torn up flag as it lay on the ground. He was later charged for a firearm offence, but this was overturned in 2007. I saw the flag in person in 2024, at the exhibition, ‘Thou Shalt Not... - A Tame Iti Retrospective’, at Whakatāne art gallery. Iti showed this flag alongside documentation in a multidisciplinary exhibition exploring his life.

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In 2004, Iti alongside thousands of protestors marched in a hīkoi from Te Hiku-o-te-Ika in the far North to Pōneke demanding a repeal of the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act (2003). The controversy sprang from the then Labour-led government’s passing of a law that deemed the Crown as the owner of the foreshore and seabed, except for the privately owned parts. This piece of legislation essentially annexed millions of acres of land away from Māori. On parliament grounds, dressed in black, Iti brought a bucket full of onepū that he then laid across the forecourt. Former Labour MP, Nanaia Mahuta later recalled that this line of sand formed a reminder of what generations of Māori have fought for; land. In another action in November 2023 I witnessed Iti cover his body in uku gathered from Maunga Kākaramea, as an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza. In this moving performance, ‘Te Mura o te ahi’, shades of Kākaramea gently slid over his entire body, while his frequent collaborator Ati Teepa, dressed in a hazmat suit and gas mask, gently threw uku on Iti’s body, as well as water. In a video of the work posted later Iti reflected on his own whakapapa and the invasion of Mataahua. Iti’s political life and work are based within these injustices, ranging from Māori land rights, Te reo Māori, the Vietnam war and more. He also recognises the need for solidarity with the struggles of other Indigenous people and marginalised groups.

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Prince’s 1995 work ‘Flagging the future: Te Kiritangata’ continues to cause outrage as it has been re-exhibited for ‘Artist Activist’, which is currently showing at Hastings City Art Gallery, but will move to Waikato Museum later this year. ‘Flagging the future’ in 1995, was shown in ‘Korurangi: New Māori Art’, curated by George Hubbard at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which consisted of a series of kōrari stems fastened together to resemble a single triganomic surveying post, and a delicately woven hīnaki sits like a figure with its legs dangling. This tupuna dually represents both Karl Marx and the demigod Māui. Lined outwards following the angle of the fastened kōrari are two kōrari on the floor lined with pumice and feathers, motioning towards Tino Rangatiratanga. These stones and feathers were fastened to the surveying post, while a harakeke basket contained the stones. In front of this structure is the New Zealand flag with the words ‘Please walk on me’ stenciled on the flag in white. The reference to Marx speaks to that of the demigod Māui, who was an agitator and trickster. But it also makes reference to the processes of land enclosures, known in Marxist discourse as primitive accumulation, that occurred across Europe, and in turn European colonies. Enclosure of Indigenous homelands cut people off not merely from the ‘means of production’ and other material modes of life, but more importantly from their physical, social, political and spiritual identity. The Ngāi Tahu academic, Simon Barber has written that, “...through the violent processes of the clearance of direct producers from the land—enclosure, colonisation, extirpation, ‘so-called primitive-accumulation’—that the umbilical relationship between people and the land that nourishes them is broken.[8]

Prince’s work was a critique of the fourth National Government under Jim Bolger, whose “fiscal envelope” policies proposed to cap all Māori land settlements at $1 billion. Doug Graham, the then minister of Treaty Negotiations introduced the policy in 1994 where the aim was to give ‘full and final settlement’ to so-called Māori “grievances”. This was a huge slap in the face, because although it claimed to settle Māori grievances fairly and forever, it was actually an attempt by the Crown to avoid its responsibilities under the Treaty. A year earlier, Māori activist Mike Smith, cut down the Monterey pine tree atop of Maungakiekie or One Tree Hill. Maungakiekie was once a pā site established by Kiwi Tāmaki of Waiohua. Following the birth of a son of a local rangatira, a single tōtara, known as Te Tōtara i Āhua, was planted on top of the pā. By the time of European settlement the pā had been abandoned and in 1850 a Pākehā settler, Sir John Logan Campbell, cut down Te Tōtara i Āhua. To make up for this he planted a grove of trees, but only the Monterey pine survived. Smith, inspired by the actions of Ngā Puhi leader Hōne Heke, who in 1844 after being frustrated with the failure to honour either He Whakaputanga nor Te Tiriti o Waitangi he cut down the flagstaff Union Jack at Kororāreka. Heke explained that, “The Flag takes possession of the land. It was chopped so it might fall.”[9] 150 years later after Heke, Smith cut the tree down and it caused outrage.

In 1995, Prince’s ‘Te Kiritangata’ was removed, and in the same year my iwi Waikato/Tainui became the first iwi to settle with the Crown. The settlement includes cash and land valued at $170 million and included a personal apology from Queen Elizabeth II. In her 2010 Bruce Wesser lecture, ‘Politics of the brown table’, the Māori lawyer, and activist, Annette Sykes, outlined how neoliberal Treaty settlements have facilitated the rise of Māori managerial class at the expense of working class Māori, who are yet to see the benefits of the Crown’s ‘redress’ and ‘apologies’.[10] Sykes writes that, “Māori are defined in opposition to what is good for the nation and are told to forgive, forget and move on.”[11] She further outlines the inadequacies of ‘settlements’ in that, “Māori land holdings, even after Treaty settlements are taken into account, are small, less than three hectares per person, and returns from Māori land are confined to a small section of the Māori population, about one third”.[12] Sykes is not wrong, and furthermore she alludes to the fact that were the Crown to really ‘honour’ Te Tiriti it would bankrupt the government. Think for instance of the fact that in 2017, the cost for superannuation per annum was 11 billion dollars, but in that same year Treaty settlements only equaled a total of 2.2 billion dollars. This costs five times more in one year than in the 184 years of breaches to Te Tiriti. Māori sacrifice of land and resources has always been inscribed in order to assure social cohesion. The graciousness of Māori means they are willing to accept these terms, because they do not dictate the terms, but in the words of the late Māori lawyer Moana Jackson, “You don’t settle a treaty, you honour it.”[13] How do you honour the aspirations of the Treaty? You protest and you resist.

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Prince, who had been involved in the struggle at Takaparawhau, was also well known for assisting and collaborating with her former partner, the late activist Te Ringa Mangu (Dun) Mihaka, in a number of political agitations.[14] The most infamous was in 1983 during the royal tour of New Zealand by Princess Diana and Prince Charles, where Mihaka performed the whakapōhane. A whakapōhane i te tou is an act of disrespect, a traditional insult, which involves baring one’s buttocks. It has additionally been described as “the ultimate culturally sanctioned Māori way of displaying opprobrium”.[15]What followed was two court cases in the Wellington District Court in 1983 and the High Court of New Zealand in 1984, in which both Mihaka and Prince fought separate charges of offensive behaviour (Mihaka) and assault (Prince). In previous demonstrations in 1980 and 1981 both had participated in the burning of the New Zealand flag.

In a photo by John Miller taken at Waitangi of Mihaka alongside Pākehā filmmaker, Darcy Lange in 1985, we see Lange and Mihaka sitting on Mihaka’s car boot. Here, Mihaka was selling and distributing the book he wrote and produced with Prince detailing these court proceedings. I wondered where Prince was and if she was there. I keep meaning to call her and ask. I remembered that behind every activist is usually a partner holding down the fort at home. Her contribution to this pukapuka is often downplayed, and her work is overlooked like many wāhine Māori. In her most recent exhibition ‘Artist/Activist’, curated by Gina Matchitt, currently touring the country, Prince created a judge’s wig out of muka and cotton. The former being the fibre found inside Harakeke. In doing so, she draws on the history of how legal systems within Aotearoa have extracted Māori land and her own lived experiences as an activist who spent a lot of time inside courthouses.

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The newest version of ‘Te Kiritangata’ restaged for ‘Artist Activist’ was very controversial when shown at the Suter Gallery in Nelson and at the Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings Art Gallery in Hastings. Notably, there were no complaints around the work when it first opened at Pātaka Art Gallery and Museum in Porirua. In both instances, the work was taken down, due in part to the threat of violence from those who opposed the work in 2025. The words ‘Please walk on me’ could be seen as being cheeky or sarcastic, but it is an invitation not a command. First and foremost it is a work of protest. The controversy peaked in Hastings where city councillor, Steve Gibson was extremely vocal about the exhibition, when speaking to journalists he insisted, “That flag has been carried by New Zealanders in every major conflict and it holds deep meaning for many of us…” This led to Bryce Gambirazzi, a 38 year old martial arts instructor from Napier going to the gallery and stealing the flag last year in December. He was arrested and charged with the theft of the flag, but used the police offer of diversion to avoid jail time. Much of the controversy was over where the exhibition was located, right beside a war memorial. There was a similar case in Nelson where the Nelson RSA made a formal complaint. This ignored Prince’s own whānau history, where her whānau served in both World Wars. And ‘Artist / Activist’ included a series of anti-war works that pay homage to this shared history. These intricately woven harakeke works recalled the trenches and gas masks worn by soldiers in the First World War, as well as the fact that Prince’s Northern tūpuna invented trench warfare, notably for the battle of Ōhaeawai. This was the prototype of the ‘modern pa’ and made in response to new European weaponry in 1845. Accordingly Māori participated in both World Wars with up to 16,000 enlisting to fight in the Second World War alone. They enlisted in part because of promises from the Crown that their service would enable them and their whānau access to better education, health and land. This never happened. Prince reminds us in the book ‘Mata Ora: the Living Face’, that “ ‘Democratic’ structures are no guarantee for the political safety of colonised indigenous people anywhere.”[16]

I wonder why Gambirazzi wasn’t offended with Prince’s ‘Flag Conversations’ (2024)— unopened New Zealand flags sourced from a $2 shop also in the show. I wonder why he didn’t steal those too. Prince handwrote notes on each unopened flag. The first one reads, “What is the difference between an invasion and “peaceful” colonisation?” I’m not sure I can answer this question, but it’s a question I would put to the detractors of this work and see what answers they can rustle up.

Recently I spent hours poring over complaints that were anonymised to the Hastings City Council that I obtained through the Official Information Act, such as “It's racism disguised as art. I'm offended” and “...the current "Walk on Me" flag set up with the New Zealand Flag is a complete disgrace. This goes against everything New Zealand stands for. The very idea you entertain the idea of having such a sick mess set up there is just beyond belief. Get rid of it! I can't believe yourselves would allow such rubbish.”[17]

I also submitted an Official Information Act to the Nelson City Council, who sent even more of these complaints, some from Facebook, and many that read as extremely threatening.

“What a disgusting piece by Diabe Prince you are showing at your arr gallery…Congrats you've reached a new low and your staff should be ashamed of yourselves. I sincerely hope whoever allowed this loses their job and you lose your public funding. Remember who pays your wages.”[18]

“I dont think allowing an activists display of totally disrespecting our countries flag, is acceptable under the meaning of "art". The gallery obviously condones this, so for this patriotic kiwi, I give it the thumbs down, & before you say raceist, I'm maori.”[19]

Due to public pressure and threats of violence at Nelson’s Suter Gallery, the flag was removed. What is interesting is that to my knowledge, when shown in Porirua at Pātaka Art and Museum, there was no outrage, or threats of violence or even a complaint.

What I was most surprised by was the ways in which these complaints mirrored almost exactly the guests’ comments and complaints printed inside the cover for the catalogue for ‘Korurangi: New Māori Art’, where one gallery goer wrote, “One or two good pieces, but quite disgusted with the ‘Walk on Me’ flag.”

Even reviews at the time by Māori art historians panned the show, including Jonathon Mane-Wheoki, who claimed the exhibition “lacked a heart, a pulse, a wairua.”[20] I continue to vehemently disagree with many other Māori who see this exhibition and indeed Diane’s work as being merely a ‘stunt’ by a ‘radical’. What does it mean that these same responses to the work have happened twenty years apart?

It is sometimes uncomfortable, too uncomfortable for some to comprehend the nuances of what our national identity has been built on. Instead, it's easier to lean into outrage and steal the flag, threaten violence, and complain, rather than accept that Māori have been cheated continuously. They choose instead to hone in on the very divisions that fissure at the surface of all our conversations around what it means to belong to this place. These fissures of nationalism have been bubbling again and they will not cease.

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In 2021 at the exhibition ‘Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art’, curated by Nigel Borrell at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, I noticed Diane Prince was not included and nor was Tame Iti. Each time I went I searched for their work and was confused at the lack of inclusion, which in my mind has always been instrumental in understanding what the role of politics within Māori art should be. Although Robyn Kahukiwa, Emily Karaka and Maureen Lander’s work gently poked the bear, much of the work felt celebratory rather than speaking to the material realities most under-resourced Māori communities continue to endure. Even the work by John Miller was simply a series of photographs from the 1973 Māori artists and writers hui at Te Kaha-nui-a-tiki marae. These photographs are beautiful, but these are not his most explicitly political work. ‘Toi Tū Toi Ora’ was ambitious, emotional and overwhelming in its scope, but to me it was safe and did not want to draw too much attention to works by many of these artists that provoke a real assessment of the true political and social situation for Māori who do not belong to the cultural class (of which I belong).

The work of each of these artists reminds me of the importance of being an elder rather than an older.[21] So, in this spirit I want to acknowledge the tremendous amount of respect I have for Nigel Borrell as a curator and artist and the work he undertook in order to make ‘Toi Tū Toi Ora’ a reality. Māori curators and arts workers operate at the coalface of a system that has always excluded or sought to define who we are and what Māori art is. This exhibition was so important for so many of us, in that it pushed for more representation of these kinds of exhibitions. My hope is that eventually we can have an exhibition that explores the work of people like Diane Prince and Tame Iti whose artwork and activism are completely entwined. As artists, we can learn from the example of their life’s work, so that we can imagine a better future not just for us, but for the next generation of artists who face a precarity that we will never fully be able to contemplate.

The absence of their work in ‘Toi Tū Toi Ora’ makes me wonder whether they were excluded because the explicitly political nature of their life and work is completely at odds with the way the art world system functions. They do not make work that is an aesthetic translation of politics, but rather they demonstrate their capacity to speak to their lived experiences that are based on an uncompromising commitment to political action. I wonder whether it's possible for a gallery or museum institution to historicise politically radical practices without neutralising them.

None of these artists were trained within European-style art education, so their work was never going to turn layered, historically dense realities into a narrative shortcut. They have not been trained like I have to translate and package politics into digestible images ripe for my Instagram feed. When I look across the spectrum of their bodies of work I am reminded that I am complicit in making work that (despite my keen interest) is not always political if it exists solely inside a gallery or museum. Institutions, funders, other donors and the cultural frameworks that govern these places do not want to show political art, but they want the appearance of political engagement without taking political risks themselves.

So what then is the role of politics within Māori art in 2026? What lessons can we glean from Māori social movements and the way they always overlapped with Māori art movements? These tensions can be interrogated by thinking through what the activist Dun Mihaka wrote, “When people speak of ideas which are capable of revolutionising society, they are really saying that within the old society elements of a new one have already been created, and that the dissolution of old ideas keeps pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.”[22] Here, Mihaka is drawing on the words of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, who from his prison cell in 1930 wrote, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Here we are weeks out from an election, where the existing social and political order is collapsing and we need to find viable leaders who are capable of imagining change. My hope in reflecting on the work of these two artists is to remind my peers of a long history of resistance evident in the practices of Iti and Prince. We must be willing to engage in political risk in order to orientate our work and the capacity for imagination that is integral to any political mobilisation. My hope is that we take up the challenge.

  1. The word ‘Māori’ only began to be used as an ethnic and cultural catch-all label to describe all Māori people after European contact. Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal has argued that an alternative meaning for the word ‘Māori’ is ‘natural’ and gives the example of the word bit ‘waimāori’, which translates to ‘fresh water’. Royal suggests that in this essence we should understand the word Māori as it ‘…communicates ideas of clarity, transparency and cleansing’ We can infer from this explanation that the term Māori must be understood always in relation to colonisation and as a way in which the legibility of difference has been eroded in favour of creating an ethnic group that can never have all of the differences of place, dialect and history that is inherent within hapū and whānau groups. This is not to say that I disagree with or do not use the term ‘Māori’, just that the forces by which we organised politically were shaped by unparalleled changes to Māori society. Not just the introduction of rīwai, the bible and all kinds of technologies and weapons.

  2. Diane Prince, “Te Hono ki Waitangi” - Tent Embassy”, Mana Tiriti catalogue, City gallery Wellington, 1990, 57.

  3. Newth, Kim and Fisher, David, “Flag ‘art’ just a protest” in Sunday News, Auckland, November 5, 1995, 21.

  4. Simon Barber, ‘Property values: the enclosure of Aotearoa New Zealand’, Architectural Review. 7 September, 2023, https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/keynote/property-values-the-enclosure-of-aotearoa-new-zealand

  5. Ibid.

  6. Tainui Stephens, “A most diplomatic intent”, E-Tangata, April 28, 2004. https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/a-most-diplomatic-intent/

  7. Dun Mihaka, “..Ki Te Whei-Ao…..Ki Te Ao-Marama”. Marama Laurenson (ed)., (Te Ringa Mangu Ltd: Wellington), 1989, 98.

  8. Simon Barber, “Māori Marx: Provisional Materials”, COUNTERFUTURES, Vol.8 (2019), 51.

  9. Hanahiva Rose, “The Rise and Fall of One Tree Hill”, Spinoff, April 15, 2021, https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/15-04-2021/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-pine-on-one-tree-hill

  10. Annette Sykes, “The Politics of the Brown Table” (2010), Kei te pai press (ed)., Mai i te poo ki te ao Marama: From the Darkness into the light. Kei te pai Press: Dunedin, Aotearoa, 2021, 50-51, https://site-913327.mozfiles.com/files/913327/maiitepookiteaomaarama.pdf

  11. Annette Sykes, “The Politics of the Brown Table” (2010), 77, https://site-913327.mozfiles.com/files/913327/maiitepookiteaomaarama.pdf

  12. Annette Sykes, “The Politics of the Brown Table” (2010), 51, https://site-913327.mozfiles.com/files/913327/maiitepookiteaomaarama.pdf

  13. Hana Pera Aoake and Morgan Godfery, “Land Back: On Language, Bodies and ‘Cheaty’ Settlements”, Un Projects, 14.2, Elena Gomez and Rosie Isaac

    (eds)., 2020, https://unprojects.org.au/article/land-back-on-language-bodies-and-cheaty-settlements/

  14. It’s worth noting that Dun Mikaha also participated in the occupation at Takaparawhau, as did the artists Emily Karaka and John Miller.

  15. Dun Mihaka and Diane Prince, Whakapohane I Na Tuohu Koe Me Mea Hei Maunga Tei Tei. Ruatara Publications: Porirua, New Zealand, 1984, 80.

  16. Mataora The Living Face Contemporary Māori Art. Witi Ihimaera, Cliff Whiting, Sandy Adsett., eds. (David Bateman:Auckland, 1996), 144.

  17. Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request - Diane Prince exhibit - Response, Heretaunga Hastings City Council, 4 March 2026, (obtained under Official Information Act 1982 request to the Labour Market Policy Group, Department of Labour).

  18. These are direct quotes so the typos are included.

  19. As above.

  20. Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, ‘“Korurangi”/“Toihoukura”: Brown Art in White Spaces’, Art New Zealand 78, autumn 1996, 45.

  21. The first time I heard this expression was while on residency at Forge projects. My friend Mary Amanda McNeil (enrolled member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe) spoke of it when we talked of what makes a good tuakana/mentor. Thank you Mary for your wisdom, cigarettes and friendship.

  22. Dun Mihaka, “..Ki Te Whei-Ao…..Ki Te Ao-Marama”. 98.



Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Tainui/Waikato) is an artist and writer from Aotearoa.


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