Abstract
In February 2012, The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, near Wellington, planned to host So It Vanishes, an exhibition by acclaimed Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, whose often shocking works seek to highlight how dispensable human life has become in the parts of Mexico riven by drugs wars. Margolles’s installation would have used infinitesimal amounts of morgue water in a bubble mixture dispensed into an empty, silent room in the same building that sacred Māori treasures are housed. The incorporation of water used to wash corpses in So It Vanishes, particularly in proximity to cultural treasures, would have been deeply offensive, indeed dangerous, for Māori people. Following objections, the exhibition was cancelled. This article analyses the cancellation of So It Vanishes and seeks to answer whether and how transgressive art and indigenous beliefs may be reconciled in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand.
Highlights
The Dowse The Dowse is situated in Lower Hutt,2 which has traditionally been a dormitory suburb for Wellington, but today is technically a city with an increasingly cosmopolitan population
In contrast with the newcomer population, Indigenous people, who are principally associated with the Te Atiawa iwi,3 constitute fifteen percent of residents (Hutt City Council 2007: 20)
This article has sketched the cancellation of So It Vanishes and indicated the difficulties of juxtaposing transgressive art and Indigenous treasures, it appears that Māori concerns principally related to the risk to people, not to things
Summary
The Dowse The Dowse is situated in Lower Hutt, which has traditionally been a dormitory suburb for Wellington, but today is technically a city with an increasingly cosmopolitan population. Tensions between traditional and modern Māori artists were evident at the time of Korurangi (Mead 1993: 4); the gallery sought to incorporate certain traditional protocols into this exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art. As Amery observes, taonga, such as the sacred pātaka, do not belong in a contemporary arts space, the expectation that public exhibition spaces should play ‘multiple cultural roles can place limits on having valuable safe spaces that allow work by artists such as Margolles to challenge our thinking’ (2012: 11). Galleries may be inappropriate places to exhibit the work of certain contemporary Māori artists Supporting his translation of tapu, John Macalister cites an interview from City Voice: ‘Maori artists consider their art tapu and do want to have food or drink consumed nearby, or displayed near work for sale’ (2005: 126). The multi-functional ‘art museum’ is not a space that taboo-breaking art might share with another culture’s treasures or challenge its beliefs
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
