Whakapapa

Tia Venning

August 22 – September 25 2022

My first sketches and planning for this work were based on trying to better understand my feelings of connection to my tīpuna (ancestors) through my whakapapa (genealogy, lineage, descent). I was considering how I am connected to so many people that I have never met and yet their legacy affects me in many, often subtle ways. I feel them with me and yet I have never heard the sound of their voices. They are an important part of my life and whakapapa connects me to my whānau, my hapū, my iwi, my maunga, and my roto; a grounding that informs much of character.

However, during the process of making, I found myself thinking more and more about interpersonal connections in terms of the thousands of experiences I have and will have during my lifetime as well as the past before me. From here I considered how one day I will be a layer in the whakapapa of my descendants. And from there I considered what will shape them? What experiences and interactions will affect their paths? The idea of examining how my life is constantly shaped and moulded became a dominating feature of thought running through my head during making that influenced and shaped the work, and ultimately took it on a new and unexpected path. At the conclusion of the making process I realised the irony of my decision to change course.

Each encounter and experience we have is a moment in time, marked on our pathway. Sometimes the effect is fleeting; other times it is profound in its influence on the shape of the path ahead of us, diverging us from our current course onto a new, uncharted one.

Sometimes we consciously choose how an experience affects us; sometimes it is hidden deep in our subconscious. Often they are blended and blurred with past experiences and interactions to form unexpected and unplanned new pathways.

The 256 strands (over 650 lineal metres) represent masses of experiences and encounters; each one influencing my decisions, emotions, connections, viewpoints, then informing my future experiences through knowledge learned, gained, taught, and altering my course and informing my decisions accordingly.

No matter how great or small the experiences or interpersonal encounters we have, each ‘tangle’ and thread becomes bound to us; forever etched in our history as a knot, a weave, a braid, or a tangle and we move through our life journey. Each moment of ‘now’ is the un-braided end of the thread ready to connect and evolve into new forms and pathways; ready to grow and connect with others in a beautiful confluence of tangles.

@tiavenning