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The A/R/T connection: linking art practice, research and teaching

Article  in  International Journal of Education through Art · December 2009

DOI: 10.1386/eta.5.2and3.265/1

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International Journal of Education through Art, 5(2 & 3), 265-281, ©Intellect Ltd 2009

The A/R/T connection: linking art practice, research and teaching

Jill Smith, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract
The engagement of art educators with art practice, research and teaching is increasingly
under debate. In New Zealand, as in many western countries, the emphasis has
historically been upon teaching and learning. Perhaps influenced by Eisner’s enlightened
approaches (1979, 1991) to educational connoisseurship and criticism, art/s educators
began, in the late 1970s, to explore theoretical concepts that lay behind practice. Since
then, emerging visions have been identified that support the argument for broadening
research practice. Examination of the arts-based and practitioner-based forms of inquiry
being advocated now prompted me, within the context of art education in New Zealand,
to engage in an approach to A/R/T in which art practice, research and teaching
interconnect in an ever-continuing cycle.

Keywords: Art education, a/r/tography, A/R/T cycle, research, New Zealand

Introduction
A number of art/s-based forms of research using creative methods of inquiry into the
complexities of teaching and learning are being articulated in the literature. But Sullivan
(2005, 2006) points out that despite the call for innovative inquiry, art educators continue
to position research within education theory. He claims, furthermore, that art/s-based
researchers are using methods associated with qualitative paradigms employed in the
1980s–1990s. Sullivan (2006: 19–20) encourages arts researchers to shift from ‘seeing
inquiry as a linear procedure or an enclosing process’ to embracing interactive and
reflexive ‘research acts’ involving critical and creative practice. This view is endorsed in
reports of research experimenting with a range of creative approaches designed to reveal
insights unlikely to be retrieved through more traditional methods (Irwin 2004; Sinner,
Leggo, Irwin, Gouzouasis and Grauer 2006). These researchers seek to broaden ways in
which qualitative data is collected, analysed, reported and represented. The methods they
use include narrative, autobiography, ethnographic approaches and they emphasize the
role of lived experience. The objective of this ‘arts-informed’ research (Cole and
Knowles 2001) is to amalgamate rigorous scientific inquiry with creative and responsive

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research processes. There are compelling arguments for understanding the creative and
intellectual studio-based work undertaken by artists as a form of research and critical
inquiry (see Duxbury, Grierson and Waite 2007; Sullivan 2005, 2006).
A/r/tography is yet another approach to arts-informed research. Emanating from
the University of British Columbia, this theoretical model illustrates ‘the beginnings of a
new stream of practice’ (Sinner et al. 2006: 123). A/r/tography builds on ethnographic
approaches such as autoethnography, an autobiographical method that references multiple
roles (Irwin and de Cosson 2004). Thus, in comparison with the clearly defined roles of
an artist, a researcher and a teacher, a/r/tographers merge these actions. Inquiry involves
an ongoing process of interconnected art-making and writing that seeks ‘to create
additional and/or enhanced meanings’ (Sinner et al. 2006: 124). Irwin (2004: 30), a
leading exponent of a/r/tography, refers to A/r/t as métissage, ‘a metaphor for artist-
researcher-teachers who integrate these roles in their personal and professional lives’. It
was this approach that influenced me to establish an A/R/T connection in my research.

My approach to A/R/T
Art education in New Zealand favours practice over theory and research (Smith 2007a).
Irwin (2004) argues that art educators need to embrace interconnections, however. She
and others (see Sinner et al. 2006; Springgay, Irwin, Leggo and Gouzouasis 2008)
suggest that engaging with a/r/tography is a means of integrating theory/research,
teaching/learning and art/making. Irwin (2004: 28) refers to ‘theoria, praxis, and poesis’
as ‘three forms of thought that are separate yet integrated identities…’. In this
conceptualization, knowing, doing and making merge.
My approach to a/r/tography within the New Zealand context, featured an
ongoing ‘cycle’ in which each through form informed, interacted and interconnected with
the others. Each entity was underpinned by differing, yet complementary, theoretical
frameworks brought together in a personal reconceptualization. My A/R/T cycle began
with educational research that informed my art practice. They both influenced my
teaching, and continue to inform further research. In turn, new ideas for art practice were
generated.

265
The research (R)
New Zealand has a historical commitment to biculturalism. The Treaty of Waitangi,
signed in 1840, represents a partnership between the indigenous Maori people and
European settlers. Although the majority of teachers and students in New Zealand are
Pakeha (European/New Zealand) they are required to honour the principles of this treaty
and become knowledgeable about Maori art and culture (Smith 2006).i Since the 1980s,
however, New Zealand has increasingly become multicultural with a progressively
diverse student population. The research in this cycle was motivated by my position as a
Pakeha art teacher-educator conscious of an imperative to investigate issues arising from
the changing student demographic (Smith 2007a). I sought to uncover the extent to which
ten art teachers in five secondary schools in New Zealand took the ethnic and cultural
diversity of their Year 9–10 students into account and how their practice was shaped by
personal and professional influences. The research problem lent itself to an interpretive
paradigm (Denzin and Lincoln 2005) and the flexible methodology offered by a multiple
case study approach (Stake 2005, 2006). Participant perspectives were sought through
conventional data collection methods that did not privilege one method over another.
Document analysis, participant observation in classrooms, interviews with the art
teachers and photographic recording of student artwork in progress and completed were
employed. Although Sullivan (2005) questions such conventional research methods these
all produced rich findings that informed my A/R/T cycle (Smith 2007a).
The complexity of meanings and interpretations of ‘culture’ was an issue. Begler
(1998), whose ideas informed The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum, published by the
Ministry of Education (2000), classifies culture in two contrasting ways. In the first,
culture is understood in terms of a particular society’s social, economic and political
systems and the beliefs and values of its citizens (this is culture with a little ‘c’). Culture
with a big ‘C’ refers to the ‘high culture’ commonly associated with forms of endeavour
understood to represent a society’s highest aesthetic achievements. It was difficult to
arrive at a simple operational definition. The conceptual framework for the fieldwork was
eventually informed by no less than eight kinds of discourse in the literature on this topic.
In the first, culture was understood as the hallmark of a civilized, cultured person, a
notion manifest during the Enlightenment (Arnold 1882). Criticism of a modernist,

265
hierarchical western cultural hegemony (the western aesthetic) was a second theme
(Brottman 2005; Chalmers 1999; Efland, Freedman and Stuhr 1996; Robinson 2001).
This strand of discourse argued that western cultural hegemony holds popular taste and
art forms in disdain, ignores pre-modern art styles and disregards non-western cultures. A
third related theme promoted elitist notions of ‘high art’ and the western art canon. The
canon, which focuses exclusively on painting, sculpture and architecture, has been
defended by Bloom (1994) and Crowther (2007) as the supreme measure of excellence.
Two further strands of discourse featured in the literature influenced the research
design. The first strand examined the role of symbolic forms and signs in communicating
culture and on the way material cultural objects and artefacts function as ‘identifiers’
(Hodder 2003; Geertz 1973). The other strand theorized ‘identity’, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’
and drew on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion (1990) of ‘habitus’ (all the social and cultural
experiences that shape us as individuals). Finally I was influenced by theorizing about the
effects of globalization and transnationalism on conceptions of culture, identity and
nation state, for example by McCarthy, Giardina, Harewood and Park (2003) and Suárez-
Orozco & Qin-Hilliard (2004). A significant finding of the research was that these
multiple strands of theoretical discourse about ‘culture’ and conflicting positions were
unknown or of little concern to the teacher participants (Smith 2007a). Their pedagogical
practice remained firmly rooted within the western aesthetic.
Nieto (2004) argues that teacher ethnicity has a powerful impact on student
learning where teachers take this factor into account in their pedagogy. Although students
bring different cultures to school, Nieto (2004: 107) points out that many teachers treat
them the same way, assuming ‘equal means the same’. These assertions were crucial in
the analysis of the fieldwork data. Literature about culturally inclusive art education and
issues of culture, diversity and difference in school settings was important also (Gay
2000; Johnson 2002; Landsman and Lewis 2006). This literature explicated views of
protagonists and antagonists towards ‘modernist’ multicultural art education initiatives
that celebrate pluralism and diversity while maintaining existing political, social and
cultural conditions. It implied that they should be replaced with ‘postmodern’
conceptions, such as social reconstructionist multiculturalism and teaching visual culture.
Both these approaches emphasize difference and challenging the dominant power and

265
knowledge structures that create sociocultural inequities (Duncum 2005; Freedman and
Stuhr 2004). I concluded that a critical approach to policy and practice that prioritizes
ethnicity, equity and democracy is the way forward to creating culturally inclusive art
education in New Zealand’s secondary schools.
Exploring relationships between the politics of culture, education and curriculum
and the educational needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds was an
important focus of the data collection and analysis. Analysis of the fieldwork data was
informed by the ideas of cultural theorists like Freire (1985) and Giroux (1992) who think
that schools have a responsibility to educate for an equitable democratic society, and
teachers should critically examine them as political and cultural sites. These assertions
align with arguments that art education can make a significant contribution towards
democratic practices (Chalmers 1996; Efland et al. 1996). I noted Grierson and
Mansfield’s complaint (2003) that the politics of difference is absent in arts curriculum
policy in New Zealand. These authors maintain that the school curriculum perpetuates
modernist art historical assumptions and elevates western art practices to a prime
position. They complain that art education ignores the relevance of popular culture, mass
media and the multiple and sophisticated imagery and technological systems students use.
They want art education to reposition itself so as to represent global and local culture,
history and power relations.
The research was presented conventionally as a text-based thesis, albeit
accompanied by thirty pages of photographic documentation. Three pages of images
illustrated how each teacher implemented their art curricula at Years 9–10. Student
research studies, preparatory sketches, developing ideas and finished artworks provided a
visual representation of pedagogical practice. When I began to report the research I found
I was drawing in particular on images of student work. I came to realize during the
interviews that, as visually literate people, art teachers are influenced more by images
than words. Reading art education theory and research reports hold little interest for
them. Nine teachers professed no conscious knowledge of multicultural theory, and all
ten were unaware of discourse on critical pedagogy. Their planning and teaching was
based largely on personal beliefs about what is, or is not, ‘art’; what does, or does not,
constitute appropriate art education; and on broader social conditions and experiences.

265
Mindful of the power of images and the imperative to disseminate the research, I decided
to re-present selected findings in visual form. Informed by research (R) the art practice
(A) dimension of my A/R/T cycle was set in motion.

My art practice (A)

Influenced by a/r/tography, the methodological approach adopted employed five
interpretive steps. I began by re-examining the literature articulated in the thesis. From
the research findings I selected interpretations of culture I considered especially potent
for challenging ways in which art is considered, interpreted and positioned in art curricula
in New Zealand and are embedded in pedagogical practice. Third, I reflected upon the
artistic and physical means by which cultural interpretations can be re-presented as
artworks. Having decided to employ the metaphor ‘talking my way through culture’, I
constructed a series of fourteen ‘talking sticks’, drawing on the Maori concept of
tokotoko (talking sticks orators use at traditional marae (meeting places)) (Mead 1986;
Salmond 2005). It was important to reconceptualize this custom-based form so that the
sticks neither replicated nor appropriated Maori cultural significance. My sticks were
designed to speak for themselves and give ‘voice’ to the research. In the final step they
were presented in a reconceptualized ‘talking stick circle’ as an installation. Instead of
being passed around a circle of people (an ancient way of assisting decision-making that
creates and strengthens community) (see Baldwin 1994), these sticks were positioned in a
large circle. Viewers could move around and within it to ‘read’ messages each one
conveyed. I wanted the talking sticks to function as tools demonstrating that art practice
can re-present research and challenging perceptions about relationships between art,
culture and curriculum; and demonstrating that artworks can be used as a ‘voice’ to
confront pedagogical practice (Smith 2007b).
A key finding of the research was that examples of western art continue to
dominate art programmes in New Zealand’s secondary schools. So as to draw attention to
this continued reverence for western ‘high art’ I used an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s
Mona Lisa as the focus for the talking stick called The Ultimate Cultural Icon (Figure 1).
This supreme exemplar of high culture (high Renaissance perfection and the western art

265
canon) has been reified in art and art historical discourse and held up by art historians,
theorists, critics and the public at large as the ultimate cultural icon.

Figure 1: Jill with her talking stick The Ultimate Cultural Icon.

The talking stick was constructed from timber, painted black and encased in slide mounts
and transparencies. The top of the stick featured four reproductions of the Mona Lisa by
Leonardo da Vinci; below this I placed 80 re-presentations of this famous image. The
slide mounts commented on the manner in which this image has been ‘captured’ and
‘projected’ in multiple art, popular culture and educational contexts. In this work I sought

265
to challenge art educators to consider how western art connects with young people’s lives
in New Zealand and provoke them to examine their curricula and pedagogy given that
they live in a multicultural society and a globalized world.
It was evident also from scrutiny of art-department documents, the interviews and
observations that work selected for student investigation of the contexts in which art is
‘made, viewed and valued’ (Ministry of Education 2000: 73), was drawn primarily from
‘high art’. Irrespective of the students’ ethnic and cultural diversity, modernist western
examples predominated in the case study schools. There was little evidence of so-called
‘low art’ (popular culture, crafts, decorative and applied arts, or tribal and indigenous
arts) with the exception of Maori and Pacific Island art. The emphasis in art programmes
on western art, and absence of non-western examples and other cultural forms, influenced
the construction of the pivotal talking stick, The ‘Best’ and the ‘Rest’ (Figure 2a).

Figure 2a: The talking stick, The ‘Best’ and the ‘Rest’.

This double-ended stick was constructed from timber and finished with images, text and
mixed media. One end of the stick, separated by a handle, was painted white denoting the
supposed ‘superiority’ of ‘high’ art in the western (white) tradition (Robinson 2001); the
other was painted black, denoting so-called ‘low’ art and culture (Brottman 2005). The
models of a classical temple representing the ‘best’, that topped the white end (Figure 2b)
and black whare (Maori meeting house) at the other, symbolized rejection of the ‘rest’ as
low culture (Figure 2c).

265
Figure 2b: Detail of the ‘best’, at one end Figure 2c: Detail of the ‘rest’, at the other
of the talking stick. end of the talking stick.

Five bands of images, separated by narrow strips on both shafts of this talking stick
parodied cultural lineage and were accompanied by passages of text from my thesis. The
images representing ‘best’ included ‘fine art’ works from classical antiquity, the Middle
Ages Renaissance, and the nineteenth century, and critically acclaimed works from the
twentieth century – mostly by male artists. Images representing the ‘rest’ featured
marginalized forms of tribal art, folk arts, decorative arts, popular arts and craftwork of
women. This talking stick was placed in a horizontal position in the centre of the circle,
where it could be pivoted on its axis in any direction to engender debate. The aim was to
provoke art educators into considering conceptions of culture in which the ‘rest’ is as
important as the so-called ‘best’, and including so-called ‘low art’ in their programmes.

265
 The domestic crafts, that played such a significant social role for women
historically (Wayland Garber 1995), were absent from the art programmes observed. The
literature consulted for the research was dominated by colonizing views and voices of
male European authors and artists. Craft has been omitted from this western fine arts
hierarchy that reinforces the values and beliefs of people in power and suppresses the
aesthetic experiences of others (Robinson 2001). The talking stick, The Women’s Circle
(Figure 3a), was my response to this marginalization.

Figure 3a: Talking stick, The Women’s Circle. Figure 3b: Detail of The Women’s Circle.

265
This talking stick, constructed from a clear acrylic tube, provided a ‘window’ into
women’s circles. It celebrated the significance of the circles and pleasures of lace-
making, quilting, beading, sewing, knitting and embroidery. Six circular bands of text
and images positioned on the exterior and within the tube, celebrated female creative
output (Figure 3b). This talking stick contained fragments (memories) of the embroidery,
knitting and patchwork quilting I created and wore as a secondary-school art teacher in
the 1970s. As I constructed this stick, I reflected upon my continuing interest in craft and
its absence from art programmes in New Zealand.
My art practice was further informed by the argument that art education, at least
in western nations, is bedevilled by a view of popular and material cultural objects as
manifesting the ‘culture of the masses’ (Chalmers 1999; Efland et al. 1996). This view
was evident in several art programmes I observed when students employed superficial
identifiers to represent ‘New Zealand culture’. They showed little interest in the impact of
material objects on contemporary life (Dant 2004), or in the suggestion (Hodder 2003:
159) that artefacts are more than a ‘passive by-product’.
The title of the talking stick Bottled Godzone (Figure 4a) parodied how New
Zealanders describe their nation as ‘God’s own country’. Made out of a clear acrylic tube,
it contained nationalistic icons of ‘kiwiana’ associated with New Zealand culture (see
Barnett and Wolfe 1989). I placed paraphernalia plundered from tourist outlets inside the
tube, such as kiwi birds, plastic tikis, rugby balls, sheep, buzzy-bees toys, jandals, paua
shells, Maori dolls and silver ferns. These were ‘bottled’ in place with a cork (Figure 4b).

265
Figure 4a: The talking stick, Bottled Godzone. Figure 4b: Detail of Bottled Godzone.

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These objects functioned as signifiers to question curricula and pedagogy that persist in
treating material culture as a superficial, passive by-product. This talking stick challenged
art educators to engage students with material culture and seriously consider the role it
plays in contemporary society.
Another important research finding was about the effects of globalization. While
not a new phenomenon, global transformation of culture raises complex questions about
what the ‘art’ in art education consists of today. The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry
of Education 2000: 70) lists ‘painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, photography, film
and video, computer-generated art, and combinations of these forms’ as some visual arts
that ‘reflect the traditions and modern-day expressions of cultures and societies’. I
observed little evidence of students engaging with art forms outside this limited
descriptor. All members of society depend on visual images that go beyond this ‘fine
arts’ orientation to help them make wide-ranging decisions, for example about what to
wear or choose to watch on television (Freedman and Stuhr 2004). Art educators can no
longer ignore the impact of popular and visual culture, whether international or local, that
surrounds and shapes daily life (McCarthy et al. 2003; Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard
2004). Advocates of visual culture education like Duncum (2005) argue strongly that art
education must encompass a broader range of popular arts, global virtual culture and
forms of visual culture beyond the fine arts.

265
Figure 5: Detail of The Young Consume Visual Culture: Visual Culture Consumes the
Young.

The talking stick, The Young Consume Visual Culture: Visual Culture Consumes the
Young (Figure 5), was constructed from visual paraphernalia that I collected on a visit to
a popular shopping mall frequented by young people. It was covered with images
associated with popular music, clothing, entertainment and communication technologies
placed within CD-ROM cases and accompanied by passages of text from the thesis. The
intention behind this talking stick was to urge art educators to incorporate critical theory
in their programmes and get students to consider the effects of visual culture on cultural
identities positioned within the contemporary sociocultural context.
The effects of globalization and transnationalism on art align with rapid
developments in technology. Kelly (1998) argues that technology is itself a ‘third culture’

265
that has joined the cultures of the sciences and humanities. Kelly’s assertions that ‘culture
is controlled by technology; and that ‘a culture of youth has emerged’ (Kelly 1998: 993)
are reinforced by technological practices understood to be the aesthetic and creative tools
of the future. These practices favour flexibility, mobility and repositioning cultural
regimes.

Figure 6: Detail of Technology Has Seized Control of Culture!

265
The purpose of the talking stick Technology Has Seized Control of Culture! (Figure 6),
was to give ‘voice’ to the way that, under the influence of consumerism and capital
accumulation, technologically-conveyed messages permeate young people’s daily lives.
To reinforce this message I suspended examples of communication devices in a time
capsule made of acrylic tubing. Metaphorically ‘wired around’ a globe, sitting atop this
talking stick, these devices (computer chips, electrical wiring, compact discs, circuit
boards and lights) were caught in a relentless beam of pulsating light. They referenced
the ‘techno-speak’ I recorded during one presentation at an art education conference:
‘mapping expressions, encoding experience as data, digital processing, numerical
representation, modularity, automation, variability, trans-coding, gesture-based input, and
the multi-touch interface’ to name but a few. While digital technologies dominate the
everyday world of young people, I saw little evidence of these potent forms of expression
in the study of Year 9–10 art programmes.

Teaching (T)
The findings of this research (R) have informed my art practice (A). Both have
influenced the teaching (T) dimension of the A/R/T cycle. Students in my pre-service
teacher education courses are primarily European. The majority are graduates from
tertiary art institutions where the student intake is predominantly European. This is in
stark contrast to the student demographic in New Zealand secondary schools (Smith
2007a) and to National Curriculum policy that requires schools to respond to cultural
diversity. While the literature I read implied that teachers have a responsibility to make a
conscious and socially informed commitment to multiculturalism, it was evident that the
teachers’ understanding of diversity and difference in the research was affected
negatively by a number of factors. The pedagogical practice of the five New Zealand
European/Pakeha teachers was strongly influenced by their European cultural
backgrounds, artistic experiences and tertiary education. The five teachers from ‘other’
cultures (Maori, Samoan, Taiwanese, Dutch and North American) used criteria to assess
student achievement based in the dominant western European culture also. Although the
New Zealand art curriculum is bicultural – it includes the study of Maori art and culture –

265
the programmes I observed all provided a monocultural rather than a culturally inclusive
form of education.
I am sympathetic to critiques of New Zealand art education that press for a more
revolutionary stance (Grierson and Mansfield 2003). I introduce my pre-service teachers
to the idea of shifting from a pluralist multicultural perspective, underpinned by a
modernist progressive pedagogy, to a critical postmodern one that specifies inclusion and
access, affirms diversity and acknowledges difference as a dynamic conception of
culture. The students are introduced to writing by critical theorists like Giroux (1992) and
Bhabba (1995) that informs them of the realities of ethnic and cultural difference. I draw
upon Giroux’s concept of teacher as ‘cultural worker’ in particular, to stress their task is
to work alongside and in collaboration with young people; and that art education is a
powerful vehicle for this.
Art education theory that argues the very visibility of art in society, as well as its
function as a metaphor of culture, can play a significant educational role reinforces this
stance. I suggest that change in New Zealand art education necessitates a shift away from
an elitist, modernist, fine art aesthetic relying on the western art canon, towards art in the
everyday world and decoding contemporary culture. This necessitates extending the
critical enquiry previously reserved for the world of ‘fine arts’. I debate with my pre-
service students how they can gain an understanding of transformative pedagogy and
design curricula that operate from within the socio-political context of their own lives.
We address issues of group difference and how power relations function to structure
racial and ethnic identities (Giroux 1992, 1994; Johnson 2002; Nieto 2004). Above all I
encourage them to challenge the hegemonic knowledge that perpetuates the power of
dominant cultural groups. The crucial dimension of this teacher education programme is
close examination of how art, culture and curriculum relate to young people’s lives in
contemporary multicultural society and a globalized world. Both the evidence I gathered
from the research (R), and re-presentation of it in my own art practice A, have
significantly altered my teaching (T). I no longer adhere to a ‘how to’ or ‘content’
approach to curriculum and pedagogy. Rather, I challenge student teachers to acquire
greater knowledge and awareness of their students’ cultural differences and implement
culturally inclusive pedagogies that encourage individuality. I urge them to become

265
aware of the politics of difference and resist ‘cultural neutrality’ in curriculum planning
(Mansfield 2000: 306). I recommend that they pursue pedagogical practices that are
contextualized so as to reflect and engage with conditions of contemporary society and
include the student worlds.

Summary
The A/R/T connection presented in this article has proven to be an enriching experience
that was unforeseen when I embarked on the doctoral research. The conventional
methods employed in the case studies yielded rich data. However, it was the responses to
the photographic documentation of student outcomes from the Year 9–10 art programmes
that prompted engagement in art practice. This potent means of re-presenting key
findings from the more traditional form of a research thesis have informed my teaching
and continue to interconnect in a continuing cycle of A/R/T.

Acknowledgment
I wish to thank Kerry-Ann Boyle for her photographs of the talking sticks taken for the
exhibition catalogue, Talking my Way Through Culture.

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Suggested citation
Smith, J. (2009), ‘The A/R/T connection: linking art practice, research and teaching’,
International Journal of Education through Art, 5: 2/3, 265-281.

Contributor details
Jill Smith is Principal Lecturer in the School of Arts, Languages and Literacies at the
Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand. A Pakeha (European) New
Zealander, her teaching and research interests are in relationships between art, culture and
curriculum. Her doctoral investigation into issues of culture, diversity and difference in
art education developed from her master’s study of biculturalism.

Contact:
E-mail: j.smith@auckland.ac.nz
University of Auckland Faculty of Education
Gate 3, 74 Epsom Avenue
Auckland 1150
New Zealand

i
The Treaty of Waitangi-Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed on 6 February 1840 by over 500 Maori
chiefs and by William Hobson representing the British Crown, is considered the founding
document of New Zealand. Under the Treaty, the Maori (tangata whenua – original inhabitants)
are given protection of their taonga (cultural treasures, including land). With the arrival of
European navigators, traders and missionaries, the Maori applied the descriptive term ‘Pakeha’
(white man or abnormal skin colour) to these strangers and adopted the term ‘Maori’ (normal or
natural) for themselves. Although it carried no legal force until receiving limited recognition in
1975, the value of the Treaty and of New Zealand’s bicultural identity has since been
acknowledged by government, including educational, documents. For example, the Arts in the
New Zealand Curriculum requires students to ‘develop an understanding of art forms in relation
to the tangata whenua […] and to biculturalism in New Zealand…’ (Ministry of Education 2000:
7).

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