Urban Pacific
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at Randolph Street Gallery, Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, March 2007
Taylor Kingi
Ngati Whakaue, European
Taylor utilises established conventions of teaching
and learning within
the modern New Zealand school classroom as the point of departure for
his work. In Half Caste, plastic school rulers are used to form two
seminal constructions within the context of Aoteoroa / New Zealand the
wharenui and the church. Each building has been flattened and presented
on the wall as a model. The playful primary colours of the plastic
rulers which make up each piece are used to reinforce the cultural
conventions of each building and each structure is bolted together in
an overt
way referencing the meccano sets of the 1960s and 70s. In Niu Taylor
references the contested process of transliteration that has seen Maori
language interpreted via equivalents in English language. Like Half
Caste, Niu utilises the visual language of the 'building blocks' of
our
learning, forming a wagon chain word that translated back into English
means to predict the future.
Niu
2006
Painted Mdf
47.5 cm x 23.5 cm x 12 cm
photo credit: Lloyd Osborne
(half – caste) Whare 2006
Ruler assemblages
Plastic rulers
30 cm x 40 cm x 15 cm
(half –caste) Church 2006
Ruler assemblages
Plastic rulers
30 cm x 40 cm x 13 cm