Cora-Allan

Cora-Allan paints with whenua pigments sourced from the land. For Cora-Allan, and many Māori artists, whenua is inherently political. It is a symbol of what has been lost through colonisation and what is being fought for by generations of Māori land-rights activists.

When this work was first displayed in the exhibition Encountering Aotearoa in 2024, the artist wrote:

"This year on Waitangi Day, Māori and tangata Tiriti came together to protest the new government, as our nation’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was once again presented as something that can be questioned and revised. This work is an explicit acknowledgement of the fight for sovereignty over land, language and culture that continues to consume tangata whenua and Indigenous communities around the world."

kāpia - kauri gum, resin

hiapo – barkcloth from Niue

whenua – earth, land

tangata Tiriti – non-Māori people who uphold the promise of tino rakatirataka (self-determination, autonomy) enshrined in Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Te Tiriti o Waitangi – the Treaty of Waitangi

tangata whenua – Indigenous people, literally ‘people of the land’