That’s right. While you battle to fill the petrol tank or scrape together the rates bill, the government’s arts funding machine is busy shelling out millions to subsidise taonga pūoro flute lessons, tukutuku panel weaving, and “indigenous knowledge transmission” workshops. And carving? Absolutely there's always room in the budget for a few more chisels and a carved pou or two.
Creative NZ alone handed out over $1.8 million in a single round just for Māori-specific arts. And that’s just the bits we can see. Add in Te Puni Kōkiri, Manatū Taonga, local councils, and suddenly we’ve built an entire taxpayer-funded industry around people being “commissioned” by their mates to carve a pou for a marae upgrade then getting another grant to teach their cousin how to do it.
So while we’re told Māori arts get their “fair share” of the government’s whopping $430 million culture budget, good luck finding any specific, transparent number for actual grants to individual carvers or artists — it’s all buried under vague headings like “kaupapa Māori initiatives,” “Mātauranga Māori revitalisation,” and “equity partnerships.” In other words, there’s millions floating around, but don’t ask for receipts just trust the bureaucrats and consultants that it’s all making a “meaningful impact” somewhere between a carved pou in a council foyer and another workshop on “ancestral knowledge sharing.”
Now don’t get us wrong traditional arts have their place. But when that place is permanently at the front of the public trough, maybe it’s time for a little accountability. You know results, outcomes, value for money. Radical ideas in Wellington, we know.
Meanwhile, you get means-tested for basic health support, while the guy carving a symbolic waka for a council foyer is on round two of his $30,000 “revitalisation” grant.
Steven is an entrepreneur and an ex RNZN diver who likes travelling, renovating houses, Swiss Watches, history, chocolate art and art deco.
13 comments:
And apparently, Creative NZ funded workshops at an LGNZ meeting. They were probably trying to embed Maori wonderfulness and culture into Local Body politics. Who will stop this grifting nonsense?
If Maori want to be so wonderful why don't the corporate Maori organisations, dripping with taxpayer largesse, put up some of their easy-earned money? They would still have plenty left for the multi-million dollar houses and latest Range Rovers. Looking at you John Tamihere.
Everyman and Everywoman are in angry mode about this. Are you listening Luxon?
Who is Arts/Culture Minister? The ubiquitous Paul Goldsmith (Luxon's henchman). 5 major portfolios. He will make key gestures in each - electioneering is starting. But if re-elected, National could revert to advancing He Puapua.
Voter trust is seriously damaged.
A very public example : the bridge opening in the Wairerapa that was delayed for 6 months while the traditional pou to go on both ends of the bridge were "carved " - from Cor10 steel.
This nonsense has to stop - step forward Luxon and stop it.
So what's happened to Maori Sovereignty? If they are an independent sovereign entity, wouldn't they be funding these specific Maori "arts" themselves?
Also it isn't only the carving that gets funding. Look at Creative NZ's website. Rather than Maori getting their "fair share", Maori and Pacifica almost receive the lot. Read their draft strategy.
So you may ask why NZ art is at such a low ebb? Where are all the 21st Century Katherine Mansfields, Ngaio Marshs, Colin McCahons or Frances Hodgkins? The answer is that if they aren't Maori or Pacifica, they would never get a chance.
Mmmmm....... and I've had a lifetime in the Arts world.... VERY HARD for choirs, orchestras, and the like to obtain $$$ - the higher calibre the harder it is. Community arts funding now depends upon city council not gummint....... unless you are wanting tattoos or carving. Totally mindless.
Mark, I agree with your contention the Maori and non Maori arts spend should be in full public view.
I would include the amount wasted on bachelor of arts and social science degrees, ignored by the cerebrally challenged NZ press whilst bemoaning the increased competition the new rurally focused med school creates.
Voters aren't buying the Labour spin doctors he puapua revival racist rubbish.
The polls keep showing majority coalition support, despite the pain caused by the harsh medicine required to cure us of the Clark advised Ardern's self enrichment scheme.
More racist Maori bashing
Same for all university funding: a disproportionate amount goes to Maori projects or any projects that incorporate Maori values, etc. Any project making an argument must critique others and hence is disrespectful .... I recall the Flight of the Conchords song Hurt Feelings.
I'm a professional furniture and musical instrument maker. I've done many carvings in wood and bone as well. A few comments on Maori wood carving:
1) Paintings by early 1700's European visitors of Maori meeting houses show a very simple and "primitive" style of decorative wood carving as compared to the work later seen AFTER Maori had access to METAL tools! Believe me, doing complex wood carving with stone tools is very difficult and super slow.
2) "Traditional" Maori carving suffers from the usual limitations of work done in stone-age tribal cultures. The style and content is strictly limited because it has to conform to the past. Innovation is very difficult and is very slow due to the religious nature of most of this work. There is very little "art for arts sake". Because tribal culture is conservative and individual freedom is very limited, Maori carvers only had a limited range of images that were acceptable to the tribal elite.
3) I have a photo I took down in Fiordland on a still morning from the dingy of my yacht. It shows a perfect reflection of the rocky shore in the water. Close examination of the image shows many of the "traditional" tiki-like Maori images which they copied straight from nature. They didn't use free imagination to come up with ideas for images.
4) Under the influence of European contact and acquisition of metal tools, Maori carving evolved from the primitive simple pre-contact forms to more complex forms and a wider subject matter.
5) Just as all current Maori are actually a mongrel mixture of Maori and non-Maori races due to extensive intermarriage, Maori "art" is now heavily influenced by European art.
Every time I see more carvings on motorways and parks I comment that carving is the only skill they come out of prison with.
People, where do you think a significant part of that $130billion Maori economy we keep hearing about comes from?l
You forget the revived "art".... the damned facial "art" .... "wode" the ancient Britons called it. Went out of fashion with the arrival of ancient Romans....who were engineers and literate and organised.
Your comments might have some validity, but not your facts. There were no European visitors to NZ in the early 1700s (not 1700’s, btw). Tasman came in 1642; the next one, Cook, in 1769.
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