Are Designers Diluting Culture? Connecting Theory to Practice

Abstract

The cohabitation between Indigenous and non- Indigenous peoples in this post-colonial society is a hefty but necessary topic that must be discussed. This is particularly important for landscape architects, as we are responsible for designing our urban public spaces and cities. Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa, have struggled with land theft, and the erasure of their history and identity since the first European settlers arrived. Aotearoa has come a long way regarding cultural acceptance, acknowledgment and collaboration when it comes to design. This is evident, as engaging with mana whenua is considered of national importance in the Resource Management Act; however, the effects of colonisation still impact Māori today. As designers responsible for our public realm, we can aim to address these issues and create a co-habitable society that embraces and empowers all. Although this is the intent of many landscape architecture groups, is it appropriate to label recent projects as transformative and progressive if the design process follows colonial thinking, lacks authenticity and spirituality, and is essentially “a copy of something that never existed”?1 Spirituality is imbued in Māori culture, evident in Te Aranga Principles such as Mana and Ahi Kā2 that Māori have gifted us. The absence of authenticity and spirituality in our designs, due to existing constraints and fixed ways of thinking, dilutes Māori culture to trivial symbols; therefore, the goal of a co-habitable society can never truly be achieved. This will be discussed by analysing the article “Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve: The Landscape of Simulation” by Rod Barnett (Ngāti Raukawa), an internationally acclaimed professor and academic author currently a Professor of Landscape Architecture and Head of the School of Architecture at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. The article discusses simulation, which embodies the greater issue of exploitation of Māori culture for tokenism and commodity. Similarly, the second chapter in the book Imagining Decolonisation, “What is Decolonisation?” by Ocean Ripeka Mercier (Ngāti Porou), an academic and professor who specialises in physics and Māori science at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, will be examined. Mercier’s chapter highlights the ideas and processes of decolonising our minds and spaces to truly achieve cohabitation. Lastly, the theories of Barnett and Mercier will be challenged by analysing two landscape architecture projects in Tāmaki Makaurau. By doing so, this paper emphasises the gravity of the issues within our design practices that claim to be authentic and inclusive, yet, at their core, precisely lack those attributes.