Courtesy of National Radio What's Going On 2005-08-02

Presenter (Lynn Freeman): A member of New Zealand's gold-medal winning team at last year's Chelsea Garden Show in London has been awarded New Zealand's first Hawaiian carving residency. Te Waka Toi, the Maori Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, announced today that Lyonel Grant, a highly regarded sculptor, carver and designer for 30 years, will spend two months based at the University of Hawaii. Lyonel says while there he'll explore the relationship between the tangata whenua of Maori and Hawaii.

Lyonel Grant (Sculptor and Carver): I'm interested to see where they sit in the scheme of things in that you've got this huge art machine, I guess if you will, the American - the big American big brother looking over the fence and seeing that impact on the Hawaiian art forms.

Courtesy of National Radio What's Going On 2005-08-02

Presenter (Lynn Freeman): A member of New Zealand's gold-medal winning team at last year's Chelsea Garden Show in London has been awarded New Zealand's first Hawaiian carving residency. Te Waka Toi, the Maori Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, announced today that Lyonel Grant, a highly regarded sculptor, carver and designer for 30 years, will spend two months based at the University of Hawaii. Lyonel says while there he'll explore the relationship between the tangata whenua of Maori and Hawaii.

Lyonel Grant (Sculptor and Carver): I'm interested to see where they sit in the scheme of things in that you've got this huge art machine, I guess if you will, the American - the big American big brother looking over the fence and seeing that impact on the Hawaiian art forms.

A little scoping trip I did up there a couple of years back, I sort of went around some of the galleries on Maui especially, looking for ways that my art could link into the galleries there, you know, be it the Polynesian link if you will, and I found that there was a lot of romanticised images about Hawaii with mother and calf diving deep into the - whale calf diving deep into the sea and the blues and the hues of the sea and coral and palm trees etcetera, but very little of the indigenous art form showing out of all of that, that little survey I did. And so I'm interested to see where the indigenous artists are at and maybe some of the approaches that Maori have taken in the past to enhance their profile in the art world. There might be some helpful links that we can establish.

Presenter: Well, I understand - I mean there are parts of the Pacific where this exactly has happened, that that link has been broken.

Grant : Yes.

Presenter: To bring it back would be the ultimate goal wouldn't it, or to help to bring it back.

Grant : I guess. I mean they've got to find their way of doing it. Far be it for me to go over there and tell them what to do and how to do it, but maybe they can take a guide off some of the things that have happened here in Aotearoa and perhaps use them as - [indistinct] or take heart that other people have been through the same thing or are still going through the same thing as they may be.

Presenter: And you'll be creating your own work while you're there as well?

Grant : I had planned to work on a largish piece up there for the project that I'm working on now here in Auckland but I'm thinking maybe it might be good to do a piece specifically and leave the piece there as a mark of the exchange.

Presenter: And you're also working on a meetinghouse at Auckland's Unitech?

Grant : Yes, but this meetinghouse is probably the largest project I've ever worked on in my life and I've done two other marae previous to this one. The first one was in '85 to '87, the second one was '93 to '96 and now this one but I'm pretty sure that it's going to be my last one. It's just so intense and so all- consuming that there's not a lot of room for anything else.

Presenter: So from start to finish with the Unitech marae, how long will it take you by the time -

Grant : Well, I don't think I'm going to get any change out of five years really. It will be round about two and a half years now and that's the way things are structured and the way budgets have panned out and things and it's going to - there's not going to be any change out of five years I don't think.

Presenter: It's turning into your Sistine Chapel isn't it?

Grant : Oh.

Presenter: What about the approach to this Lyonel because with marae built you know, in 2005, how much of this is totally traditional and how much of this is putting a contemporary mark on it?

Grant : Well, there's a bit to add to each blade in itself and that any meeting houses I've had anything to do with have been preconstructed structures and basically you're called in to embellish those structures and a meetinghouse doesn't fall or stand on the - literally on the work that creates it. So with this meetinghouse we're going to try and have components actually performing the task that their name suggests. So like a poupou means a supporter so the wall poupous will actually support the hekes, the rafters that climb to the tahuhu which will actually be the backbone of the house, so the actual pieces will provide the structural integrity of the building. So that's an old approach.

Presenter: And the carvings themselves that you're making, are they based on traditional or they have a mixed traditional and contemporary?

Grant : There's another element that I want to do with this one is start a post [phon] fleet if you will and there's going to be a chronological sequence through the house that by the time you get to the middle it will be 1840 but then as you move further down the house, it's going to be more narratives brought in so you're talking about for example the state of kohanga reo system or taku tai moana or things that start to include the more general populace you know, so there's these really cool opportunities to sort of create new works based around those narratives.

Presenter: And that's Lyonel Grant, the inaugural winner of the Te Waka Toi Hawaiian Carving Residency. He leaves in September for two months.

A recording of this interview is available from Replay Radio.
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