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Download AudioOne of the country’s newest arts laureates says he has only a small part to play on what is a much larger revolution.
Tame Iti has been named as one of seven Arts Foundation Te Tumi Toi laureates for 2022.
He says his work this year is a tribute to what’s happening in the 50 years since the presentation of the Maori Language Petition and the Tent Embassy he mounted on Parliament Grounds.
He’s in Wellington installing an installation outside Te Papa Tongarewa titled I Will Not Speak Maori, harking back to lines he was made to write at school.
“When I put the words ‘I Will Not Speak Maori’ there, when I put it on the screen and around n the fence, people walking past it said ‘that’s bullshit. I think when people see it, (they think) it must be a pakeha, somebody doesn’t like the language much. It’s the whakapapa, people need to see that and it should provoke people. That pakeha kid who responded to it and thinks it’s bullshit, he didn’t see me on the side and he looked at me and I said ‘you’re right, it is bullshit,” Iti says
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