Māori artform provides answers

Weaving brought Bonita Bigham back to life after facing a string of challenges that created a perfect storm of despair.

Now, after a long personal journey interwoven with healing, creativity and serving her community, the South Taranaki woman wants to help forge a resurgence of art within Māori communities.

Last year, Bonita, from Ngāruahine and Te Atiawa, graduated with a Master’s in Fine Arts from Massey University and this year she began working towards a Master’s in Māori Visual Art, with help from a Charles Bailey Scholarship from Parininihi ki Waitotara.

But back in 2006, times had got tough. “I had a huge emotional breakdown,” she says. “I couldn’t get out of bed; I couldn’t care for my son Te Rei. I didn’t know when I last went out the door.”

Her mother, Hinewaito Bigham, otherwise known as Aunty Josie, cared for Te Rei. But it was the loss of a family member that forced Bonita to get out amongst people again.

Above: Bonita (centre) with her whaene, Hinewaito Josie Bigham (right) and son, Te Rei Bigham-Dudley (left) at Waiokura Marae.

“I realised I needed to do something to fill me up because I felt so empty. All I wanted to do was weave.”

She started a Māori Art and Design programme through Te Wānanga o Raukawa at Taiporohēnui Marae in Hāwera. “I wove and I wove and I wove. I fell in love with tāniko, the twisting of threads to make geometric patterns, like on the edges of korowai.”

During this healing time, Bonita learned her mum’s mother, Apihaka Rei (nee Kipa), also did tāniko and was shown work made by her kuia, who died decades before she was born.

“I felt a strong connection with her and still do,” Bonita says.

“That year I didn’t do a single written assignment, so I didn’t pass, but I came back to life. It was wonderful, absolutely cathartic.”

Bonita believes that when faced with tough times it’s critically important that Māori are in touch with their culture.

“There cannot be a sense of wholeness without understanding who you are, where you come from and connecting to those people who got you here. We don’t just arrive; we are here because of them.”

As a child, Bonita loved art, but at high school was channelled into typing and other career-orientated courses, which looking back, she realises she loathed.

In the meantime, she was exposed to “awesome wāhine” doing raranga (weaving). “I was playing around the edges, but never seriously followed it through because I was not an artist – I thought I was an administrator.”

For many years, Bonita worked in offices, punctuated by a few years in journalism. “But I felt like my soul was being sucked dry and lacked creativity.”

Entwined with her artistic hīkoi, Bonita has been an integral part of the South Taranaki community.

In October, she will retire after nine years as a South Taranaki District Councillor, but is standing for the Taranaki Coastal Community Board and she also chairs Te Maruata, a national collective of Māori in local government.

Earlier this year, she had her first ministerial appointment on to the national Oranga Marae Committee, which considers funding for marae projects around Aotearoa and she recently became Poutakawaenga at Te Korowai o Ngāruahine Trust, the iwi engagement manager for the post settlement entity.

She’s also sat on school boards of trustees, represented STDC on Sport Taranaki and Dairy Trust Taranaki and supported Te Rei’s sports clubs.

But the creative realignment came in 2014 by studying art at WITT and in 2016 Bonita was accepted to study, via distance, for her Master’s in Fine Arts.

Her thesis was inspired by He Puanga Haeata, the Parihaka-Crown reconciliation ceremony held in 2017 at the historic settlement.

“Woven into that narrative was reference to intergenerational attributes, so I looked at our Kipa whānau and the creativity that flourishes within many of us. I explored the ways we are utilising that in a modern context.”

For her graduating exhibition piece, Mātauranga Interrupted, she worked with cut paper to create a tribute to the nine parāoa (sperm whales) which stranded along the shoreline of her Ngāruahine hapū, Ngāti Tū, in May 2018.

“We had never, in the living memory of our hapū, had anything happen like that,” she says.

The iwi relied heavily on the expertise of a group from Ngātiwai in Northland, who guided them through the process of hauhake (harvest).

“The learning curve was exponential; it was a very intense time harvesting the resources from these taonga and experiencing the reclamation of that interrupted cultural knowledge.”

Above: Bonita and husband Kevin.

The whale stranding led Bonita to a more profound thought process in making art and it was especially transformative for her Pākehā husband, Kevin Huxtable, who was also heavily involved in the event. “It’s brought him to a place of seeking more knowledge in Te Ao Māori, of learning the reo and understanding more about my world view.”

Above: Bonita admires the raranga by Kataraina Houia-Rongonui, created and gifted to her and husband Kevin for their wedding day

That led the couple to a conversation about Bonita’s lifelong dream of getting moko kauae.

In August this year, renowned tā moko artist and whānau member Rangi Kipa adorned her chin.

“I had not appreciated just how different it would feel to have kauae, especially from Rangi,” she says.

“So, my study for this master’s programme will be looking at moko kauae and the barriers that we, as wāhine Māori, are faced with or put upon ourselves to getting kauae.”

Bonita’s study will take two years, during which time she will receive $7500 each year from PKW’s premiere scholarship.