Heritage et AL

Back in 1982, Witi Ihimaera and D.S. Long edited 'Into the World of Light – an anthology of Māori literature written in English' . Up till then, not many Māori writers had been published in reo Pākehā. It was not because there were too few kaituhi Māori writing in English. There were many. It was more due to the racist gate-keeping of the New Zealand literary canon. This sort of bias particularly affected wāhine Māori. Mana wāhine were creating revolutionary and critical works yet these works were not acknowledged in the pākehā world. Vernice Wineera was the first Wāhine Māori poet to publish a poetry collection in English in 1978. Her collection 'Mahanga: Pacific Poems' was published by The Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University, Hawaii. Image: Cover of Te Ao Mārama, vol. 4. A rainbow of Indigenous creative works exists at Auckland Libraries but lots of this is hidden. The kaupapa of Te Ao Mārama ~ Mana Wāhine is to showcase these radiant works.

Keri Hulme’s poetry has inspired two exquisite handmade artists’ books – The Visionary , and The Silences Between (Moeraki Conversations) , on display in the Angela Morton Room’s STARGAZER exhibition. A community of artisans and artists combined to produce these ātaahua responses to Keri’s poetry, and this exhibition shares materials and stories about how these pukapuka were created.  Artist and printmaker Beth Serjeant was involved with both artists’ books. The first was her own, The Visionary (1987), which included Keri’s poem Stargazer, along with 10 lithographs Beth created to illustrate ten poems about the future. Beth later helped facilitate the artists’ book edition of Keri’s poetry collection The Silences Between (Moeraki Conversations) (2016). The Visionary was sparked by a young man Beth knew who was frightened about the future, and always looking for a mushroom cloud on the horizon. She wanted to make something that shared a positive belief in the future, and decided to p