Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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that all Maori are opposed to Pakeha participation in Maori activities, that a mood of
separatism is evolving that will eventually lead to Maori and Pakeha living in their own
enclaves”. 549
In the art world, the issue of non-Maori artists’ borrowing (or “appropriation”) of Maori
symbols and motifs has been the subject of much discussion by art commentators such
as Rangihiroa Panoho, who see non-Maori artists drawing on Maori motifs as being
symptomatic of “the tendency of Western culture to see itself as central and other tribal,
non-Western cultures as peripheral”. He states bluntly that: “In New Zealand, the real
issue is that these Eurocentric attitudes don’t belong here and are irrelevant to both our
location and culture”. 550 Other art commentators such as Paratene Matchitt have
pointed out that it is natural for influences to work both ways, and the work of some
non-Maori artists, such as Colin McCahon can be read as paying homage to Maori art
forms and culture and should thus be seen as “a public gesture of admiration and respect
for Maori culture” rather than “an improper appropriation”. 551
Ward was well aware, when he started making In Spring, of the developing debate, in
particular the notion that Maori should be left to tell their own stories. While this
paradigm seemed to him to assume too easily that “someone of the same race would
make a better film than someone of a different race”, he was nevertheless “very
nervous” as a result, and knew that attempting such a project was a risky thing to do.
He saw his main counter-argument as his ability to bring a fresh perspective to the
subject-matter. 552
Ward’s motivation for making the film was in part personal. This kind of motivation
would seem to lead to precisely to the sort of pitfall that Maori critics have warned
against: the risk of the filmmaker projecting the mythology of the dominant culture onto
an indigenous people. Like Bilbrough, Cushla Parekowhai also claims that although In
Spring One Plants Alone presents itself as cinéma vérité, it is “an individual fiction and
personal mythology”. Parekowhai asserts that Ward “selects those experiences and
observations, which according to his own particular cultural values, he thinks will be the
549
King, Being Pakeha: An Encounter with New Zealand and the Maori Resistance 170.
550
Mary Barr, ed., Headlands: Thinking through New Zealand Art (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary
Art, 1992) 133.
551
Francis Pound, ed., The Space Between (Auckland: Workshop Press, 1994) 114.
552
Lynette Read, telephone interview with Vincent Ward, 17 December 2003.