Renee Liang considers the contrast, convergence and collision of cultures while traveling in China. 

It's also the subject for her latest Cultural Storytellers interview with poet Doug Poole and artist Penny Howard, who talk about their collaboration, an exhibition and book called Ataarangi Whenua.

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I’ve been traveling for the last week in Beijing, the first part of a month’s travel in China.  I was last in Beijing ten years ago and this time round I’ve been impressed, fascinated and disturbed by how the sheen of Westernisation has crept over most of the city. In some quarters, especially those near the universities and the diplomatic areas, you could be sitting in any big city sipping just another cappuccino. The shopping is great, the beer is cold and you can get any type of food you like if you have enough money.

Walk around the corner though or peek through a doorway and there’s an old style alleyway with an old man boiling corn to sell or schoolchildren riding their bikes through the throngs of Western tourists.  Drive down the highway and between the new gated housing estates are the migrant worker ghettoes which are due to be demolished and the workers driven further out of the city.

This is the cycle of life and death in any growing city, but it seems that in Beijing the pace of change is both faster and more intense.  In between the usual tourist sights I’ve been to a migrant worker festival – where the children of migrant workers sang songs about coming to live in Beijing and how they experience second hand the effects of low income, limited access to education and insecure futures. 

In stark contrast, the arts enclave of 798  is a dizzying parade of famous and not so famous artist galleries in a converted factory district which has become such a flagship of China’s burgeoning visual arts export market that the original artists have been driven out of the enclave. On Sundays, the atmosphere approaches that of a theme park as local and international tourists throng the cafes and streets.  There are more late model camcorders and cameras being used here than can be seen at the more traditional tourist traps. Yet both this area and the Forbidden City in its repainted glory symbolise China.

And now jumping back to Kiwiland.... this contrast, convergence and collision of cultures is also the subject of this week’s Cultural Storytellers interview.  I interviewed poet Doug Poole and artist Penny Howard about their collaboration and latest project, an exhibition and book called Ataarangi Whenua.

Renee: What gave you the concept for the exhibition?

 
Penny:
It was an extension to our fist collaboration for the Metonymy Project – Ataarangi Ahau – Shadow Me.
 
This second collaboration “Ataarangi Whenua”  continues the dialogue and creative process employed in the first collaboration. However our concept , a conversation, a meeting of two cultures, actually became a meeting of many, Maori, Samoan, Irish, Scottish, & English.
 
The works produced both poetic and visually are an expression of two different artists dialogue of finding and exploring ones cultural identity.
 
Doug:
“Ataarangi Whenua” is a voyage in the Va and follows a continuum of time. Commencing from an unknown date somewhere early in the history of the pacific and pulling forward into the present time. Our  dialogues in this project are expanded and fuller conversations in which Penny and I explored the loss and longing for ancestors and grandparents. Explored family histories of each of us, discussing early ancestors, effects of the pacific diasporas, colonisation, a murder ballad and lament the war in Samoa of 1899.
 
The series of painting and poems trace very personal memories for each artist and attempt, metaphysically, to reconnect the past to the future. 
 
 
Renee: How do the two of you collaborate?  is it an organised or a more organic process... or both?
 
Penny:
Both, sometimes Doug is very organized with his coloured pencils, highlighters and neat piles of research papers (laughs), whilst mine is all over the studio and house, it’s a running joke between us.
 
Doug:
Yes humour has been a big part of our process, we enjoy working together and having a laugh at each others expense.
 
Penny:
It has also been pretty amorphous a lot of the time – but we do have regular workshops on Fridays and Sundays, where we both bring idea’s & new concepts to the table. we also email or call each other with great ideas or inspiration, we were always surprised about how similarly we were thinking,  - connecting within the Va I think.
 
Doug has an ability to challenge me and turn ideas on their heads to help to view other possibilities and connections in my work. It is wonderful to work with another person who is passionate about visual art.
 
Doug:
Yeah I agree, but equally we worked hard to impress each other too. I remember first seeing the weapons and birds in “At?rangi Ahau – Shadow Me” and thinking, Wow! Where did she get such an incredible concept from. Penny creates such original metaphors in her work. I think we have both worked incredibly hard to ensure we created truly new and original idea’s and concepts.
 
Working with Penny has been a wonderful experience as she does not confine or repress my enthusiasm for new concepts from the Pacific and new and maybe controversial idea’s for our work.
 
Renee: What makes the two of you work together?
 
Penny:
I think we are equally passionate about our creativity and creative process, but  more importantly we think and process ideas in an extremely similar way. We have never butted heads when it came to any of the works, instead if one of us has an idea the other will flow with it and challenge concepts or facets of the concept in an open and inoffensive way.
 
We have only ever fought about Andy Warhol – and we were both drunk ...
 
Doug: 
Yes, that was during a cab ride home from attending the Walker & Hall Art Awards on Waiheke, it was a good night out!
 
But getting back to the question, for me personally the process which Penny and I employ to work with other is based on mutual respect for each others art and a genuine interest in each others concepts and idea’s. On a deeper level there is a genuine friendship - we are kindred spirits - Penny allows me to work with her idea’s and have input into them and vice versa. So it is a mutual enjoyment and respect that makes us work well together.
 
Oh and not forgetting the laughs along the way and we both like Nick Cave!
 
Renee: Do you feel there are many similarities between the Samoan and Maori cultures?
 
Penny:
For me it has been the mythology, religions, and bird lore. The birds have become significant as has the ocean and in John Pule’s words, its “judicial power over us all”
 
There are also facets of Tapu and superstition that ring true between the two cultures, and also we enjoyed exploring Scottish and Irish culture. I think Irish and Samoan cultures use and observance of superstition is incredibly similar.
 
Doug:
I think although there are many generic similarities, there are also such stark differences.
Equally we were surprised about the similarities of the machinations used by the British and American governments in Aotearoa and in Samoa, in particular the distribution and training of use of arms, namely muskets. Whilst the Maori were engaged in “Musket Wars”, the same occurrence was happening in Samoa at around the same times, early to late 1800’s. This was a disturbing similarity of colonial powers using divide and conquer to the fore.
 
Renee: How much do you think being of mixed heritage has influenced your work?
 
Penny:
Hugely, there is a great longing to know yourself within a culture and a hunger to find out more about it because you do sit in the middle – that you aren’t given any particular culture on a platter – it is up to you to go out and find the stories or go inward into the Va and drag them out of yourself – I think that is apparent in our work.
 
Doug:
I have been writing from a space of being labeled “Afakasi” for the last 4 years. This space is deeply connected to the Turangawaewae – place to stand – given to me by my grandmother Edwina Ulberg. I have always felt Samoan, though externally looking so very Palagi. My journey, my message is to express my deep feelings for my aiga and my culture. My question to my audience is, well what is half caste? I am not half formed or partially disfigured like a mould air has destroyed. I am the result and product of two very different and vibrant cultures. So, you tell me.
 
Renee: How have your families responded to your work?  How have  you juggled the hours and emotions involved in producing such a large scale work with the demands of busy family lives?
 
Doug:
To be honest, I haven’t made time to think about it. Especially as we haven’t opened in Auckland yet. However after the Whangarei opening, my eldest son Jarah, patted me on the back and said, that my reading and the poetry was “awesome”, so that buoys me. But really I haven’t even committed to processing how they will view it. I hope they enjoy the exhibition and continue the dialogues contained within the work. Anja has been so wonderfully supportive and also part of the creative process as my sounding board and confidante.
 
I tend to create on the fly and just ensure I have my trusty pen and paper near me at all times. I think Penny has done the bulk of the work and late nights. She is an incredible artist and a hardworking one at that, she follows through, she is committed.
 
Penny:
Well firstly I don’t think that I am the only one who is hardworking, I know that when you are in a full on creative process your brain or part of it, is dipping in and out of it constantly. Doug was experiencing dreams of chasing the red thread around all night and being consumed during the day with researching the concepts, idea’s and family histories uncovered in these works.
 
To get back to the question, the work has been about family really, so firstly my great excitement is having the children, my own and Doug’s in the studio, asking questions about paintings – because we can have that conversation and start the dialogue with them, that hopefully will continue with their children.
 
Hours are tricky for me and I have pulled a lot of all-nighters during the project, so I guess tiredness can take its toll, when looking after a family as well. They have been very supportive.
My husband Barry Howard has been a brilliant support to me and the children whilst I have been painting in the evenings, even after working all day. Both Barry and Anja rallied around to help and got all the varnishing done in the last week of the project so I could continue painting.
I think the kids have been excited and I have seen their artwork flourish – my son Finn fills the driveway with chalk drawings right up to my studio door. I think it is good for kids to see you as not just a parent but someone who is also working hard at something they are passionate about.
 
We are hopefully creating a new kind of Taonga to be handed on to future generations, with stories told in a different way – may be this is the role of the artist and the poet.
 
Renee: What's next?
 
Doug:
At the moment the Auckland opening on Tuesday the 10th November. I am excited about the prospect of my peers, friends and family seeing the output of collaborating with Penny.Producing a 50 page chapbook of poetry is unheard for me, especially in a time frame of essentially 3 months. So I am still consumed and overwhelmed within  “Ataarangi Whenua” at the moment.
 
Penny:
It is a hard question to answer right now because there is still a huge level of exhaustion that comes with creating that amount of work (9 paintings) and I haven’t had time to even process each painting fully – in fact I am missing them while they are exhibiting in Whangarei. I am open to whatever the Va sends our way, but I do know that Doug and I will always be pinging creative ideas off each other, because we do it so well and there is a great respect between us. Maybe Ataarangi Whenua two if our families could stand it!
 
Doug:
Yeah, we are already talking about smaller interactive artworks so watch out for that! Like Penny I think we’ll work together again.

Further information:

Ataarangi Whenua Exhibition: Penny Howard & Doug Poole

Saturday 10 October–Wednesday 28 October, Whangarei
Arts Promotion Trust (Northland), The Old Library Building, 7 Rust Ave

Wednesday 11th November – Thursday 26th November, Auckland
Art Station - Ponsonby Road, Auckland

Auckland Opening Night:  Tuesday 10th 5.30 pm -7.30 pm
Official welcome 6.00 pm sharp