Along the Arahura

Abstract

Human-made climate change, population growth, and the expansion of primary industries have dramatically affected New Zealand's natural environment since the arrival of European settlers. Further to this climate change threatens human life across the planet putting pressure on countries to reduce emissions to prevent catastrophic rises in temperature. This thesis explores how future loss of land also threatens personal and collective identity. Identity; being inherently relational, relies on the external world to define itself, highlighting the existential threat to identity posed by destruction of land. The link between land and identity is integral within a Māori world view, land is seen as being intertwined with whakapapa(genealogy) and tribal history. Kai Tahu academic Hana O'Regan, in the book Ko Tahu, Ko Au explains: "On a spiritual level the land was carved with the histories of the iwi, thus hosting not only the living but also the past, the tupuna who had gone before the tribal atua that guarded the rohe." This link between identity and land is also present in 20th Century Modernist New Zealand Art, though rather than seeing land and individual as intertwined, artists created a fictional dialogue with landscape by applying ideas upon nature. Art historian Francis Pound critiques this lens, explaining that in viewing the landscape as a blank canvas, artists ignored existing life and culture already present within Aotearoa; Pound refers to this fiction as a "noisy silence." This research aims to engage with art and literature through a critical lens by focusing on, where identity is uncovered by viewing the land as sacred and sublime. These shared cultural links between land and identity are explored through model making and hand drawing, culminating in a covered bridge and chapel located on the Arahura River, retelling the story of Kai Tahu's discovery of Pounamu. The project aims to highlight the threat to identity from human-created environmental erasure.