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Nga Manu - The Birds
An exhibition of pathways where birds are used as symbols of identity and migration. The title is part of an old waiata which asks us to listen to the song of the birds for they are the songs of our ancestors - they are our stories. Yet peoples stories based on birds and bird imagery are legion across the world, past and present. The multiplicity of association, meanings and values are partially expressed through an integration of realistic, semi realistic, and abstract imagery side by side within the same picture plane. Genealogy is our identity as it has emerged from the past and takes us into the future. It creates an identity for us and helps structure as well as relate our beliefs and values. It is also a way of thinking and creating. Within the birds in these pictures you will find a variety of ages of styles from rock drawings and rock carvings to recently sketched and composed images.
Nevertheless these works are not a series in themselves but rather a development of the Te Aitanga a Kiwa series – The peoples, places and arts of the Pacific Rim. Elements of the wider Pacific and beyond still resonate in corners of the present works.
John Bevan Ford
June 2001
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