The collective and the community converge in this site specific installation with the return of old girls to the place that served as our school, our marae and our church.
Within the oldest building of Queen Victoria School a small gathering of former classmates (old girls) assisted in the installation of 520 white dinner plates each with knife and fork atop. The dinner setting arrangement resembles the formation of a kapahaka group with taaniko patterning on its surface. Installed in the former dining room of the school this took place over three days, over two weekends, with ten old girls placing plates, knives and forks in a specific arrangement.
Community is central to this installation, as both the dining room and chapel are re-activated to reference their former uses. It is also about drawing connections between people, space and place, or, whakapapa, an important value and practice in my work.
The school itself was an Anglican boarding school established in Parnell, Auckland in 1901. Drawing students from around New Zealand the school was set up for Māori girls, in part at least, as a place to assimilate them into a more European way of being. At the time church boarding schools were already in the lower North island, therefore, Queen Victoria School catered to girls in the mid to upper North Island of New Zealand.
Roimata Timutimu 91-95
Maraea Timutimu 92-96
Te Aorewa Timutimu 95-99
Ripeka Timutimu 96 – 00
Maraea Timutimu 