Meri Kirihimete!
Warmest holiday wishes from the Gallery team. We’re closing at 5pm on Christmas Eve and will be taking Christmas Day off but we’ll see you on Boxing Day from 10am.
Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
New exhibition now open.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Collection
John Miller 2004 Foreshore and Seabed March, Cyril Chapman holding photograph of himself leading the 1975 Māori Land March in Wellington
In April 2004, a hīkoi left Te Tai Tokerau Northland in protest against proposed legislation to transfer ownership of the Aotearoa foreshore and seabed to the Crown. The hīkoi was joined by numerous supporters on the way south and arrived in Te Whanganui-a-Tara on 5 May 2004. The march was another example of the ongoing fight by Māori for tino rakatirataka over their whenua. Using the camera as a witness, Miller walks us backwards through history to our current moment, revealing iconic cultural shifts – and showing us how little has changed.
tino rakatirataka ~ self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, self-government
whenua ~ land
Collection
John Miller 1972 Ngā Tamatoa occupation at Parliament, including Tāme Iti
Over many decades John Miller’s ever-present lens has recorded the people who have had profound and long-term impacts on Māori land rights in Aotearoa. Tāme Iti (Ngāi Tūhoe) has appeared in many of his photographs, including in this powerful image of Ngā Tamatoa occupying parliament grounds in 1972 during a campaign for the teaching of te reo Māori in schools. A lifelong and committed activist, Iti appears again in Miller’s photos of Ngā Tamatoa protests at Waitangi in 1972, the 1975 Māori land march, the occupation of Taiarahia Hill in 1986 and many others.
Ngā Tamatoa – A Māori rights activist group formed in the 1970s.
Collection
John Miller 1978 Raglan Golf Course Occupation, Eva Rickard
This photograph shows Tuaiwa (Eva) Rickard (Tainui, 1925–1997) and her sister Ripeka, her daughter Angeline and granddaughter Hineitimoana. Rickard is perhaps best known for leading the campaign for the return of Te Kōpua in Whāingaroa Raglan. Te Kōpua is Māori land that was claimed as a military airfield during World War II only to later become a golf course. Rickard opposed further extensions of the golf course over burial grounds. In 1978 on the day of the golf club’s annual tournament, Rickard invited tohunga and supporters to gather at Te Kōpua urupā for karakia, where she and sixteen others were arrested for trespass. By 1991, after many more years of negotiations, the land was finally returned to Māori ownership, and is now home to a community centre and a kōhanga reo.
tohunga ~ skilled person, priest, healer urupā ~ burial ground, cemetery karakia ~ incantation, ritual chant kōhanga reo ~ Māori language preschool
(He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil, 2025)
Collection
John Miller 1975 Māori Land March, Dave Ruru wheels his daughter Tania along the Wellington motorway south of Porirua, Monday, 13th October, 1975
For more than fifty years, photographer John Miller has documented protests and important cultural events across Aotearoa New Zealand. His photographs of protests about issues affecting Māori are iconic, including two hīkoi, thirty years apart, that saw thousands march to Parliament.
On 14 September 1975, fifty marchers left Te Hāpua in Te Tai Tokerau Northland led by 79-year-old Dame Whina Cooper (Te Rarawa, 1895–1994) and Te Roopu Matakite o Aotearoa. The protestors walked the length of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island, staying at marae along the way, and arrived at Parliament in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on 13 October. Their contingent has grown to 5,000 with a petition of 60,000 signatures. The hīkoi combined the leadership and experience of kaumātua with the radical activism of Ngā Tamatoa to bring Māori issues of land and cultural loss to public attention. The slogan remains galvanising: Not one more acre of Māori land.
hīkoi ~ march, walk
Te Roopu Matakite o Aotearoa ~ a Māori activist group concerned with historic losses of Māori land and retaining control of existing land; the name translates as those with foresight
marae ~ communal meeting places belonging to an iwi, hapū (sub-tribe) or whānau (family) on which the wharenui stands
kaumātua ~ elders, people of status
Ngā Tamatoa ~ a Māori activist group; the name translates as the young warriors
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
John Miller 1975 Māori Land March, Parliamentary welcome. Left to right: Matiu Rata, Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan, Hārata Ria Te Uira Solomon, Sally Marshall, Tarawara Kātene.
For more than fifty years, photographer John Miller has documented protests and important cultural events across Aotearoa New Zealand. His photographs of protests about issues affecting Māori are iconic, including two hīkoi, thirty years apart, that saw thousands march to Parliament. On 14 September 1975, fifty marchers left Te Hāpua in Te Tai Tokerau Northland led by 79-year-old Dame Whina Cooper (Te Rarawa, 1895–1994) and Te Roopu Matakite o Aotearoa. The protestors walked the length of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island, staying at marae along the way, and arrived at Parliament in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on 13 October. Their contingent has grown to 5,000 with a petition of 60,000 signatures. The hīkoi combined the leadership and experience of kaumātua with the radical activism of Ngā Tamatoa to bring Māori issues of land and cultural loss to public attention. The slogan remains galvanising: Not one more acre of Māori land.
hīkoi ~ march, walk
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
John Miller 1975 Māori Land March Porirua to Wellington motorway
For more than fifty years, photographer John Miller has documented protests and important cultural events across Aotearoa New Zealand. His photographs of protests about issues affecting Māori are iconic, including two hīkoi, thirty years apart, that saw thousands march to Parliament. On 14 September 1975, fifty marchers left Te Hāpua in Te Tai Tokerau Northland led by 79-year-old Dame Whina Cooper (Te Rarawa, 1895–1994) and Te Roopu Matakite o Aotearoa. The protestors walked the length of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island, staying at marae along the way, and arrived at Parliament in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on 13 October. Their contingent has grown to 5,000 with a petition of 60,000 signatures. The hīkoi combined the leadership and experience of kaumātua with the radical activism of Ngā Tamatoa to bring Māori issues of land and cultural loss to public attention. The slogan remains galvanising: Not one more acre of Māori land.
hīkoi ~ march, walk
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
