Sticky Tape Tāniko 2018
enamel and tape on aluminium with fixings
As well as participating in Projects 2018, anonymous artist PĀNiA! is showing at Auckland Art Fair with Mokopōpaki as part of the new section Piki Mai: Up Here ^^ (this was developed by PĀNiA!’s whanaunga, the anonymous duo Yllwbro). A country girl at heart, who often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the city, PĀNiA! is all too aware of the value of vibrant signage. Playing off the avenue format of this year’s Fair, Sticky Tape Tāniko is designed to help visitors find their way to Piki Mai, operating like the wall-mounted route markers found in Venice, whose renowned Biennale was originally an art fair. The pieces also recall the ‘slow for the curve’ signs that pepper rural Aotearoa, which themselves resonate with the chevron patterns of tāniko weaving.
Echoing Mokopōpaki’s method of painting its walls brown (rather than the usual white), PĀNiA has coated aluminium signs with brown enamel before applying colourful sticky tapes – a process that expresses the importance of remaking Aotearoa in such a way that a Māori way of being is given the prominence it has too long been denied. PĀNiA! indicates that the signs signal a new direction: ‘Think Māori map-making. Sticky Tape Tāniko is all about the re-appropriation of Auckland real estate by describing it differently.’ The pieces stand not only as a critique of colonisation, but also an act of decolonisation – using what the artist has to hand.
