Essay

The Fractures we Carry

Tyson Campbell (Te Rarawa, Ngāti-Maniapoto)

Aroha Ki Te Tangata draws together architecture, memory, and whakapapa through a thoughtful reassembly of domestic materials. Constructed from repurposed timber sourced from an Auckland villa and a Northland house, the object holds the presence of lived spaces—of rooms once inhabited, voices once present. These materials, both simple and familiar, are recoloured using Kāinga Ora-inspired paint tones relevant to the artist’s family homes.

Through this palette, Chevron Hassett connects to both the matrilineal and patrilineal sides of his whakapapa, tracing a lineage through surface, hue, and material memory. The work also poeticises histories of Māori migrating from rural to urban environments, uplifting their roots—either by choice or force—to adapt to the changing environments of modernism. The raised platform becomes a metaphor for standing on the shoulders of giants—where the kaupapa or legacy lifts us. Sitting there, feet dangling, we become like children humbled by the gravity of the work; aware of the immense weight of what we stand upon, yet invited into a space of reflection, learning, and connection.

The exhibition walls are reminiscent of kōkōwai—an ochre pigment deeply tied to Māori notions of whenua, whakapapa, and the interiority of communal space often associated with the marae. Within the room, this warmth is underscored by colonial architectural decoration; the architrave, the arched windowsills, a fanlight and fretwork, complicating the connection between Te Ao Māori and coloniality. Rhythms between these ideologies pulse in the exhibition space, the sculpture becoming the listener of these intimate conversations. The spatial boundaries of the room, the gallery and the exterior world collapse inward through the decorative logic of the installation.

Running across the edges of the platform, a water motif references pūhoro patterning, a design associated with movement, agility, and navigation, likened to a waka cutting through water. Here, it operates as both ornament and metaphor: a visual current that links ancestral knowledge to contemporary movement, fluidity, and adaptation. Aroha (love), tūmanako (hope), and whakapono (faith) converge through the work, literally platformed. Of course, these ideas are not so straightforward—especially in a world characterised by division, conquest, and the silencing of lived experience. The work functions as a gesture, a quiet invitation to relate to the complexity of Indigeneity; to hold difference, to allow for growth, and to testify to our interdependence. We can still co-exist with dignity, even if hope, love and faith look different for us all.

What struck me about this work is its reference to Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art)¹, a well-known Christian hymn often heard at tangihanga (funerals). This song—for me, at least—carries deeply emotive memories of the marae space, surrounded by heaviness, loss, and grief, yet also togetherness and the continuation of whakapapa through kanohi kitea (the seen face). Whakaaria Mai encapsulates the vibrant energy of people coming together in union—where heart, mind, and intent are bound by melody, texture, and harmony. There is a unique social activity that this waiata holds; after all, waiata are ways of acknowledging the essence of others.

In Sir Howard Morrison’s 1982 performance of Whakaaria Mai, a deliberate pause interrupts the flow, during which he invokes his three foundational pillars of life—faith, love, and hope. This brief interlude operates as a moment of translation, where te reo Māori and English intersect to form a bridge between linguistic and cultural worlds. It gestures toward co-existence, yet also exposes the slippages inherent in translation—where meaning wavers between clarity and approximation, despite the striving for cohesion.

An excerpt from the lyrics of the song go like this:

Whakaaria mai

Tōu rīpeka ki au,

Tiaho mai

Rā roto i te pō,

Hei kona au

Titiro atu ai,

Ora, mate,

Hei au koe noa.

Loose Translation:

Show Your cross to me,

Let it shine there in the darkness,

To that place I will look,

In life, in death,

Be ever near me.

Sir Howard Morrison speaking

“E ngā Iwi, mā te whakapono, mā te tūmanako, me te aroha, ēnei taonga, te mea nui, ko te aroha”

Loose Translation:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the three most important things in life: faith, hope and love”

This form of lamentation reflects a conventional Christian ode, symbolising the moment when a recently deceased loved one is believed to enter greater proximity with Christ. Yet beneath the familiarity of the melody lies a more complicated inheritance: one shaped by colonial conversion and the uneasy blending of faith and whakapapa.

It is one thing to follow the teachings of the Bible, in whatever form they take, but my ears still prick up every time I hear Āmene (Amen) or Ihu Karaiti (Jesus Christ) in the same heart-warming marae setting that Whakaaria Mai brings me to. As someone who is not religious, I cannot forget the colonial impact on Māori spirituality—and on queerness—yet I remain present, listening, cautious not to offend even when my own livelihood, morals, and values are compromised. This bittersweet nostalgia is what Whakaaria Mai evokes for me: the simultaneous experience of reverence and resistance, tenderness and discomfort. It reminds me that we can hold multiple, even conflicting, feelings at once.

For Hassett to choose this particular song—a national icon celebrated for its supposed “bi-cultural” harmony—complicates any easy reading. It unsettles the expectation of unity, revealing instead how faith, loss, and belonging are never neutral. Perhaps that’s what gives Whakaaria Mai and the platform their enduring hold: they gather us together, even as they remind us of the fractures we carry.

1 Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art) is a loose translation of a verse from the hymn ‘Abide with me’. Composed by Canon Wi Te Tau Huata (Ngāti Kahungunu), an Anglican Canon who served as “padre” or chaplain for the 28th Māori Battalion, this waiata has become a popular waiata for multi-denominational church services.

This text response was commissioned by Gus Fisher Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Aroha Ki Te Tangata, 2025.