ŌMARUNUI: PRESENT TENSE
By Peter Ireland
Parlour Projects, Hastings, Aotearoa New Zealand, October 05 - November 05, 2016
Photographer Jono Rotman is a fifth-generation New Zealander, and his matrilineal ancestors came here in the mid 19th century secure in their identity as Europeans, unquestioning of their beliefs in material progress and in the superiority of their culture. Māori were equally secure in their identity, but as Pākehā began to out-number them in the later 1850s, the security of their identity became less viable through the impact of European beliefs, reinforced by both a political and military out-manoeuvering which failed to honour the terms of 1840’s Treaty of Waitangi.
The central issue was land. Europeans viewed it as tradeable commodity to be developed and capitalised on; a Māori proverb conveys another view: “Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua” (Although people may perish, the land will remain forever) – a case of sustainability over exploitation. As disputes over land intensified, Māori opposition took many forms, including a movement known as Pai Mārire (peace and goodness), an amalgam of Māori beliefs and Christian practices. Amalgams of this sort are the stuff of history: it’s never black and white, and Walter Benjamin’s observation that “History is written by the victors” points to an added complication in what’s termed “the historical record”. The stories of our past and the construction of primary identity form an unstable double helix resistant to ultimate clarity.
Rotman attempts to resolve some of this, if only by identifying in his work some of the complexities involved, not least of all by his deployment of existing historical photographic imagery to throw light on a contemporary situation. The documentary mode of photography has a tradition of picking at the scabs of old, unhealed wounds in society, just when the majority wish may be for an application of reassuring band-aids. Rotman’s series of adventurous and contentious gang-member portraits first exhibited in 2014 is a potent and discomforting case in point.
Rotman’s new work has settled on the 150th anniversary of a clash of Pai Mārire adherents with colonial and other forces at Ōmarunui at Hawkes Bay in 1866. The elements involved in this conflict were a mix of irreconcilable beliefs, assumptions of cultural superiority, an unstable range of alliances based on perceived self-interest, and misapprehension of the deeper issues involved. It’s the classic way power asserts itself.
Seemingly an isolated “incident” in a marginal province that by and large witnessed few sustained engagements during the Land Wars, what happened at Ōmarunui has had long-term consequences affecting relationships lasting to the present day. For instance, after the battle some of the surviving Ngāti Hineuru “rebels” were exiled to the Chatham Islands where they joined the charismatic Te Kooti and escaped back to the mainland with him in 1868, remaining loyal to him during his guerilla campaign over the following four years. Other chiefs involved at Ōmarunui, though, took part in Te Kooti’s pursuit. Such commitments in such circumstances can and do last generations.
The central issue was land. Europeans viewed it as tradeable commodity to be developed and capitalised on; a Māori proverb conveys another view: “Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua” (Although people may perish, the land will remain forever) – a case of sustainability over exploitation. As disputes over land intensified, Māori opposition took many forms, including a movement known as Pai Mārire (peace and goodness), an amalgam of Māori beliefs and Christian practices. Amalgams of this sort are the stuff of history: it’s never black and white, and Walter Benjamin’s observation that “History is written by the victors” points to an added complication in what’s termed “the historical record”. The stories of our past and the construction of primary identity form an unstable double helix resistant to ultimate clarity.
Rotman attempts to resolve some of this, if only by identifying in his work some of the complexities involved, not least of all by his deployment of existing historical photographic imagery to throw light on a contemporary situation. The documentary mode of photography has a tradition of picking at the scabs of old, unhealed wounds in society, just when the majority wish may be for an application of reassuring band-aids. Rotman’s series of adventurous and contentious gang-member portraits first exhibited in 2014 is a potent and discomforting case in point.
Rotman’s new work has settled on the 150th anniversary of a clash of Pai Mārire adherents with colonial and other forces at Ōmarunui at Hawkes Bay in 1866. The elements involved in this conflict were a mix of irreconcilable beliefs, assumptions of cultural superiority, an unstable range of alliances based on perceived self-interest, and misapprehension of the deeper issues involved. It’s the classic way power asserts itself.
Seemingly an isolated “incident” in a marginal province that by and large witnessed few sustained engagements during the Land Wars, what happened at Ōmarunui has had long-term consequences affecting relationships lasting to the present day. For instance, after the battle some of the surviving Ngāti Hineuru “rebels” were exiled to the Chatham Islands where they joined the charismatic Te Kooti and escaped back to the mainland with him in 1868, remaining loyal to him during his guerilla campaign over the following four years. Other chiefs involved at Ōmarunui, though, took part in Te Kooti’s pursuit. Such commitments in such circumstances can and do last generations.
Rotman’s project has been to re-present four historical photographic portraits and two other related images in such a context as to suggest both the layers of this complex history and a reconsideration of them as icons of wider stories in place and time.
His lifetime has coincided with the beginnings of a seismic shift in Pākehā European identity. This is happening in parallel – but connectedly – with a revival of a more secure Māori identity, one being constructed, inevitably, through the lens of a long and often unhappy experience of Pākehā. As if a mirror image, Rotman’s project is one constructed through a growing European experience of Māori, and since he emerged as an artist in the early 2000s Rotman’s projects have portrayed visually the dynamics and back stories of this layered and developing relationship. The former victors are learning to enter other stories where the new victories are greater understanding and acceptance of alternative histories.
His lifetime has coincided with the beginnings of a seismic shift in Pākehā European identity. This is happening in parallel – but connectedly – with a revival of a more secure Māori identity, one being constructed, inevitably, through the lens of a long and often unhappy experience of Pākehā. As if a mirror image, Rotman’s project is one constructed through a growing European experience of Māori, and since he emerged as an artist in the early 2000s Rotman’s projects have portrayed visually the dynamics and back stories of this layered and developing relationship. The former victors are learning to enter other stories where the new victories are greater understanding and acceptance of alternative histories.
Recently, there’s been a seismic shift in the medium of photography too. The obvious one is the digital revolution, but this radical, technical move away from analogue has some philosophical implications which also form part of Rotman’s present project. Earlier developments from the 1980s have accustomed us to accept the validity of copying already-existing imagery – copying already being essential to the nature of photography. The move from analogue has sparked a new interest in very early forms of the medium such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and glass-plate negatives. In Rotman’s hands these negatives, previously regarded as merely a stage in the making of positive images, have become the focus of interest themselves as material objects.
In producing the negative image rather than the positive one for these four portraits Rotman pays his respects to the surviving spirits of these 19th century men, as well as paying homage to the two photographers concerned: Samuel Carnell and Herman Schmidt. He acknowledges not only their artistry as portraitists but pays tribute to their craftsmanship as these negatives-as-objects remain in very good condition. This can’t be said of the fifth image, by G C Coxhead, depicting Pai Mārire prisoners held on Napier’s beach. And yet in its degraded state it speaks more eloquently of the ravages of time, memory and, pertinently, the often long-lasting negative effects when cultures clash.
Rotman’s deft handling of this historical material brings a new focus and light to the long shadow cast by Ōmarunui, bringing to life the ghosts still haunting our history.
His lifetime has coincided with the beginnings of a seismic shift in Pākehā European identity. This is happening in parallel – but connectedly – with a revival of a more secure Māori identity, one being constructed, inevitably, through the lens of a long and often unhappy experience of Pākehā. As if a mirror image, Rotman’s project is one constructed through a growing European experience of Māori, and since he emerged as an artist in the early 2000s Rotman’s projects have portrayed visually the dynamics and back stories of this layered and developing relationship. The former victors are learning to enter other stories where the new victories are greater understanding and acceptance of alternative histories.
Recently, there’s been a seismic shift in the medium of photography too. The obvious one is the digital revolution, but this radical, technical move away from analogue has some philosophical implications which also form part of Rotman’s present project. Earlier developments from the 1980s have accustomed us to accept the validity of copying already-existing imagery – copying already being essential to the nature of photography. The move from analogue has sparked a new interest in very early forms of the medium such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and glass-plate negatives. In Rotman’s hands these negatives, previously regarded as merely a stage in the making of positive images, have become the focus of interest themselves as material objects.
In producing the negative image rather than the positive one for these four portraits Rotman pays his respects to the surviving spirits of these 19th century men, as well as paying homage to the two photographers concerned: Samuel Carnell and Herman Schmidt. He acknowledges not only their artistry as portraitists but pays tribute to their craftsmanship as these negatives-as-objects remain in very good condition. This can’t be said of the fifth image, by G C Coxhead, depicting Pai Mārire prisoners held on Napier’s beach. And yet in its degraded state it speaks more eloquently of the ravages of time, memory and, pertinently, the often long-lasting negative effects when cultures clash.
Rotman’s deft handling of this historical material brings a new focus and light to the long shadow cast by Ōmarunui, bringing to life the ghosts still haunting our history.