3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Film offers look ‘behind the scenes'
This year's International Film Festival gives New Zealanders the rare opportunity to see behind the scenes at a gallery as it curates a ground-breaking exhibition, in this case Auckland Art Gallery's "Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art". Rebecca Fox talks to TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty 's director, Oscar nominated producer, award-winning film-maker and art lover Chelsea Winstanley.
More than 100 artists, 300 art works, 10 installations — it sounds huge.
For art lover and movie producer Chelsea Wistanley, the concept of Auckland Art Gallery's "Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art", to create the largest Māori art exhibition in New Zealand's history, authored by Māori voices, sounded fascinating.
"I like to find stories about people that are doing all the good things behind the scenes."
Living in Los Angeles at the time the exhibition was being developed by gallery's curator, Māori Art, Nigel Borell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea), Wistanley's marriage to Taika Waititi had broken down, Covid had hit America, Black Lives Matter was going on.
"LA was kind of crazy. And it was almost like a great catalyst, actually. So I was like, I'm coming home. I'm going to sink my teeth into this."
Personally she needed to come back to New Zealand, but it also seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to go back to her love for writing and directing.
While she is known for producing — as a producer on Waititi's Academy nominated feature Jojo Rabbit , Wistanley became the first indigenous female Oscar nominee for Best Picture and her critically-acclaimed documentary feature, Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen played at the 2019 Sundance and Berlin film festivals — it is not something she ever wanted to do.
"I just fell into that role and you just keep doing one thing after another and someone tells you, you're pretty good at it or they keep offering you work in that space."
Along the way Wistanley (Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāi Te Rangi, Pākehā) forgot about her youthful self's wish to be a director. She had started out directing a television art show where she met artists such as Fred Graham, Tama Iti and met Waititi for the first time.
"I really believe in timing. And it was the perfect time for me to come home, sink myself into something that was really right. You know, on the kaupapa that I love, art."
Working alongside Borell and the gallery's team, Wistanley threw herself into the project deciding to self-fund the documentary to avoid any unnecessary restrictions.
"So what little resource I had, me and my producer, we were just like, right, we're going to do this. We'll scrimp and scrape. We'll pull favours. And, you know, half the time I'm getting the camera out myself and I'm not a camera operator. But there's just times you're like, oh, my God, I've got to capture that."
She had been told the exhibition was going to be the equivalent to the landmark 1980s "Te Māori" exhibition that toured the United States and then New Zealand's main centres, including Dunedin.
"It's got this really neat synergy, I suppose, because "Te Māori" really awakened Māori people to what their culture and a traditional culture that they had. And then when it finished its amazing world conclusion, it actually finished at the Auckland Art Gallery.
"And that was another thing that I thought, from an international perspective, was really interesting, too. Like it had all these parallels. So I was like, that's going to be fantastic."
But things took a different direction as tensions emerged between Borell and the gallery's director about the imbalance of power in curating. Borrell's vision was that Māori artists should be seen on their own terms, free from colonial frameworks and he pushed to centre Māori voices and stories. He eventually decided to resign just before the show opened.
"Alliedship, support and advocacy for indigenous and for Māori in this space is awesome but at the same time it often gets mixed up in authoring the ideas and wanting to have space in that and it is not up for grabs, it is ours to lead and to own. If it is not I don't want to be part of that conversation," Borrell says in the film.
"If we can't shape it with this exhibition project which we have waited 20 years to do, when can we?"
Like any film-maker, Wistanley had to adapt and follow the story although this was not easy at times.
"I'm merely just to be there to capture and respond as an artist myself, as a storyteller. Because people talk about a story being made three times, from the paper, then while you're shooting, and then again in the edit suite. When you get to that third part, you've got to now pull all the pieces together. And whatever you thought might have been the actual story is not any more."
She did not want that dispute to overshadow the film though.
"I think the overall outcome of the film is, what I really want anyway is, there's nothing to be afraid of, of sharing power. Even if power is the right word. It's just living in harmony together and in true partnership.
"Everyone in the gallery, Māori, Pākehā, it doesn't matter who they were, everyone was so invested in the success of that show. Because they're all working there because they love art. So they just want the best thing for the show and for the public to experience."
So she also concentrated on was showing the work that went on behind the scenes. Wistanley, whose home's walls are covered in art, got to meet and watch work some of the country's top contemporary Māori artists.
"I've always loved art and photography. And it's always kind of been my, I suppose, passion. But this time around, being able to spend time with and see the likes of Shane Cotton or Emily Karaka and their spaces of work. That was the great thing I wanted to show."
Selecting those to follow on their journey for the documentary was difficult but working closely with Borrell and the team, she selected a variety of artists doing different projects who also had strong stories.
"The artists were so generous."
Getting to see the work of the Mataaho Collective (Erena Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti and Terri Te Tau) as it was being made in collaboration with Maureen Lander was special, especially as afterwards the collective went on to win the Golden Lion Award at the Vience Biennale, one of art's highest accolades . The documentary follows their journey at Venice.
"My gosh, that was just, like, ultimate, you know. But they're amazing. They're just wonderful."
These experiences gave her a new appreciation for artists.
"Artists are just the most incredible people. They truly are."
Being able to watch and film Ngahina Hohia installing her Paopao Ki tua o Rangi (2009) mixed-media installation using poi, light and sound, drawing on her own whakapapa and the story of Parihaka, over a few days was "mind blowing". It is a piece that has been shown around the world.
"It's so beautiful. Again as a viewer you go in and you don't know how many days she spent putting it all together."
Then she got to be in Australia when Reuben Paterson saw the glass waka he had designed in real life for the first time. Due to Covid he had supervised its construction via the internet.
"It was great to capture him there. I would have been freaking out if that was my piece and it's so incredible when you see it going."
But it also gave her a new appreciation for what galleries and their staff do to make exhibitions come to life for the public from driving across the country to pick up valuable and fragile works to conserving pieces so they can can continue to be seen for years to come.
"I didn't realise how many people even worked at the gallery, or what all their roles were. Everyone from the registration team, were just such lovely people who take such incredible care, meticulous care. There is just so much that goes on behind the scenes."
Sad that the show came down in 2021 six months after opening and that it did not go on to travel internationally, Wistanley took time to decide whether or not to finish the documentary.
"I really just didn't want to put out a piece that, oh, the show opened. And yet again, it smashed all the records for visitors and things like that. It did all those things. But it didn't do some other really fundamental things, which sat with me for some time."
Two years ago she began working on the piece again, trawling through the hundreds of hours of material to piece together the final story.
"I think for them, it's a great archive. I just really wanted to kind of celebrate really what goes on. And it probably turned into something slightly different in the end." TO SEE
TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty , Rialto Cinema, Dunedin, August 24, 3.45pm. Q and A by director Chelsea Winstanley.
