Costume & Cause: An Exhibition Of New Zealand Makers Exploring Issues And Histories Through Garments

A new exhibition opens this month at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, within the newly established additional gallery space (The Foyer Galleries) of the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts. Curator Liz Cooper brings together exceptional makers Victoria McIntosh, Shona Tawhiao (Ngai Te Rangi, Whakatōhea, Te Whanau Āpanui) and Jo Torr, whose works are inspired by garments and accessories. The exhibition, which is supported by a grant from Creative New Zealand, tells stories with strong political themes, examining conflict and discord, and celebrating strength, endurance, skill and ingenuity in feminine contexts. These makers explore 21st century issues through intriguing, spectacular and thoughtful use of techniques such as embroidery, beading, raranga weaving, digital print, pattern cutting and construction.

Shona Tawhaio’s spectacular pieces are often seen on the catwalk at New Zealand Fashion Week. Her love of mahi raranga [Māori flax weaving] led her to create garments as a way to get attention focused on the beauty and strength of the weaving itself. Away from the catwalk, Tawhiao’s works imbue a fierceness and celebration of female power, demonstrating the impressive versatility of raranga. Tawhiao makes for the modern wahine toa, the woman warrior: shapes and details influenced by military uniforms, Japanese Samurai, gang patches, graphic design and hip-hop.

Jo Torr’s detailed research shines through the construction of her meticulously conceived garments. Torr’s work embodies history: recreating complex narratives about the men and women who connected and disconnected, during early European contacts and subsequent colonisation with first nations’ peoples across Aotearoa and the Pacific. The layers of an 18th century fashionable lady’s dress are presented with beautiful decoration, of tapa [Polynesian bark cloth] and shells, not silk or gold. Cowrie shells and textiles have long histories as materials of value and exchange between communities and nations. Torr’s work orients around these transactions: garments represent not only the individuals involved, but the manner of their connections.

Delicate stitching and “women’s issues” are at the heart of Victoria McIntosh’s recent opus. McIntosh uses her training as a jeweller to intricately repurpose vintage underwear and other found items, making objects that are centred on the body as both site and subject; investigating women’s self-imagery and family histories. Self-described as a childhood tomboy, McIntosh’s work is often deeply personal. She has explored the realities and fictions of adoption, maternal relationships, and how the female body is framed and regarded by the public and the medical profession, now and in the past.

The provocative statements made by McIntosh, Tawhaio and Torr in their respective bodies of work are very much facing and even inviting trouble. The power of their vision and craft skills combine in a clarion call for the 21st century - to value the backgrounds and histories of the women of Aotearoa, and how these are celebrated through impressive craft skills and materials knowledge.

Costume & Cause:

28 May to 20 August 2021

Foyer Galleries, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

www.waikato.ac.nz/academy/gallery

Opening Event at 5.15pm, 28 May: www.facebook.com/events/145051877597335

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