Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro) Shannon Te Ao. Photo: Shannon Te Ao
They flit around you in the back garden at the compost, or dive at your feet in the bush. The pīwakawaka or fantail is a special bird: so common, yet so magic.
There's a lightness, a joy to this small bird, but while they perform a cheeky acrobatic dance closer to us than any other, they are also known as harbingers of death. For Māori, to have the ability to cross from our physical world into other realms.
The pīwakawkaka - or tīwakawaka to use the artist’s chosen dialect - is central to a major artwork by renowned Aotearoa New Zealand artist Shannon Te Ao, Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro). It is representing Aotearoa New Zealand from next month at one of the world’s most significant arts events the Gwanju Biennale in South Korea.
The title can be translated as ‘I fly high, I fly low’ with the moving image work depicting in 36 still images, over three large screens, the blurred movement up close of two young men, Zen Te Hira and Tapiata Bright. It’s accompanied by a beautiful pao or song, written and performed by collaborator Kurt Komene, which also captures the spirit of this pesky creature.
“This funny little bird which is just out there doing its thing,” says Shannon Te Ao speaking on RNZ. “This tiny little thing, small in stature, I guess carries the weight of worlds, and the awareness of much more going on in our lives than we can see.”
Still from Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro) by Shannon Te Ao Photo: Shannon Te Ao
The title Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro) also signals Te Ao’s interest in the bird’s ability to move both high and low, as a way, we as people and the artist need to be agile in both being accessible and deep at the same time.
Shannon Te Ao Photo: supplied
Te Ao’s work in video has, for years, created a space for the physical and spiritually-intangible to mix, working with performance and language, in different translations, through video. The work is powerful for its openness, an expression of the multiplicity of culture and language systems in the world.
Being light of foot but carrying the weight of the world - like the bird, this is Shannon Te Ao’s work. It can, like the pīwakawaka, be cheeky and solemn at the same time as opening things out. He is perhaps best known for his 2016 Walter’s Prize winning work Two shoots that stretch far out a performance video that “explores the possibility (or impossibility) of communicating with others”. In a barn, the artist recited an English translation of a Ngati Pōrou lament to a donkey, a swan, a colony of rabbits, a brood of chickens, and a wallaby. Based in Pōneke Wellington, where he lectures at Massey’s Whiti o Rehua School of Art, he has gone on to present work in major galleries around the world since.
Yet Te Ao’s work is also very much grounded in his own world and a collaboration with those around him, present and gone. In the background of Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro), he reveals, is footage of a road near the urupā where his father and descendants are buried, and where “he will likely lie.”
“It really is that geographical moment where my body turns into something else,” he says. “Where my body is gearing up to be in tune with all those people who are here but not here, you know.”
It might surprise readers to learn that Shannon Te Ao was born and grew up in Sydney Australia, with an Australian mother and Māori father from Tūwharetoa. He came to Aotearoa 20 years ago. The work, he says, is not about identity or being broken but, “maybe the profundity available when you come home.”
Still from Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro) by Shannon Te Ao Photo: Shannon Te Ao
In writing about the work for the Gwanju Biennale he speaks of the need at this time in our history to break out of limited ways of seeing the world, of binary frameworks, to consider new ways of thinking. Which includes embracing Indigenous ways of seeing the world.
“Simple acts that undo limited ways of being continue to gain traction and thrive,” he writes. “Language and cultural knowledge sit amongst the most vital assets in this vein enabling simple steps toward profound transformation.
“I want to be that bird.”
Shannon Te Ao, tūturu (detail), 2024 Photo: Joseph Kelly
In his current work on show in Tāmaki Makaurau, Te Ao turns to colour and presents portraits of his children. In another great bold Te Ao juxtaposition a suite of works depicting his youngest daughter Gracie George Te Pōtiki Te Ao at Te Uru Gallery in Waitakere is called The New Zealand Wars.
That exhibition has just closed, but another on until 14 September at central Auckland gallery Coastal Signs, shows his two children holding each other in an embrace that feels both of love and of protection. Like the two young men in Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro), their situation is left ambiguous.
There is joy but also an expression of loss. Feelings that are open to interpretation for all, but can be seen for Māori as related to loss of culture, language and whenua. To my eyes and ears, Te Ao’s work is part of a recovery.
Like night and day Shannon Te Ao’s work may be bold but its also full of shadows and reflections. I’m reminded of the art of Ralph Hotere. The way light breaks black surfaces, and proves them to have many layers.
Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro) is ostensibly black and white, just as Kurt Komene’s pao is without accompaniment. Yet there are so many tonal levels of grey here, suggesting many worlds.
It is almost, I remark to the artist, that he was born to this work. ‘Te Ao’ can translate as the light in the darkness, day and night. The vowels ‘A’ ad ‘O’, writer Matariki Williams has noted, in Māori are used in Te Reo to denote those things beyond and above you, like your parents (ōku) and those in your possession below you, like your children (āku).
In Te Ao’s work both his parents and children are present.
Photo: supplied
