Located at the intercultural space between Māori and Pākeha in Aotearoa-New Zealand, Joe Citizen’s practice-led creative research explores some potential parallels and synergies between the metaphysics of te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā through the interactive public artwork Tōia Mai, which is located on the Western bank of the Waikato River at Hamilton’s Ferrybank Reserve.
As a Pākehā attempting to be guided by a kaupapa Māori methodology within the context of a tertiary polytechnic educational setting, the project has been developed in partnership with the Māori achievement office of the Waikato Institute of Technology (WINTEC), the Hamilton City Council and the engineering firm Longveld.
The project sought to develop a deeper understanding of te ao Māori, through a research negotiation critical of Western universalist assumptions. Identifying Māori and Pākehā metaphysical strands that challenge human exceptionalism in the production of knowledge, the thesis calls for a reassessment of aesthetics and asks if art is solely a human practice. Finally, through this interactive public art work, digital virtuality is reconsidered. Joe Citizen argues that technology is a form of cultural logicity that has agency within continuously emergent and co-constituted phenomena.