The Melvin and Oroya Day Charitable Trust added the fellowship to its existing student scholarship offering in 2023, the centenary year of Melvin Day’s birth. Melvin was an acclaimed New Zealand artist, art historian, and Director of the National Art Gallery. He produced distinctive and historically significant works over his 75-year working life, several of which the University owns.
Oroya Day lectured in Art History at the University and was the driving force behind the restoration and preservation of Katherine Mansfield's birthplace in Thorndon.
Matariki Williams (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Hauiti, Taranaki, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Atihaunui-a-Pāpārangi) has just completed her time as the 2024 recipient of the Oroya and Melvin Day Fellowship in New Zealand Art History. Matariki is an alumna of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington who is an accomplished curator, writer, and editor with expertise in Mātauranga Māori. She is one of the hosts of TVNZ programme National Treasures, in which she presents history through personal objects.
In February, Matariki taught a course focused on contemporary Māori art entitled He Iho mō ngā Arotakenga Toi Māori: A Continuum of Māori Art. Matariki says the term ‘iho’ describes something being passed down and is also the name for the umbilical cord.
“I'm looking at the passing on of intergenerational knowledge and what happens when it's been severed. How do you recapture it? How can we infiltrate archives, museums, and galleries with Māori ways of memorialisation, through generations, through artworks, through the canon?”
Having worked as a historian in government and as a curator at Te Papa, teaching the course was an intersection of Matariki’s interests. She found the high level of interest in the course exciting, but was surprised at how little the 29 students knew about Aotearoa’s history. She was able to relate that history to what is happening today, pointing out that at every moment there is a Māori artist canonising these points in history from Māori perspectives.
“A lot of Māori artists are historians in the way they research their works and create incredible things that go to the heart of our deep and complex histories. I loved sharing that with the students.”
The course included going out and looking at art in local exhibitions, getting a special view behind the scenes in museums and galleries, and close study of the University’s outstanding collection, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka, as Matariki believes in the experience of viewing art in person.
Matariki says the environment for contemporary Māori artists is more supportive now than it was for the ground-breaking artists of previous generations.
“At one time there was a perception that Māori who wanted to become contemporary artists had to ‘turn their back on the marae’ to survive in the city. But that’s no longer the case and spaces like Te Herenga Waka Marae maintain that connection for Māori students.”
Matariki was thrilled to attend the Venice Biennale in 2024 with a large delegation of Indigenous artists from Australia. The group were beside themselves with excitement when it was announced that the four Māori women of Mataaho Collective and Australian Indigenous artist Archie Moore had won Golden Lion awards.
“It was just the most beautiful time to be there. Venice was like an alternative universe where art is just the norm.”
Shona Willis, a trustee of the Melvin and Oroya Day Charitable Trust, was delighted to meet with Matariki at the end of her fellowship. “Matariki is so refreshing and energetic,” she says. “We have the sense that she will just keep on making a deeply meaningful contribution here, there, and all over New Zealand.”
Susan Ballard, Professor of Art History and Environmental Humanities, says the Oroya and Melvin Day Fellowship in New Zealand Art History is a significant and generous philanthropic contribution that spreads beyond the University to the art community, including artists and galleries.
“There are so many incredible artists in Aotearoa, and this Fellowship develops the future arts writers and curators who will work alongside them. Matariki has encouraged students to learn and remember our unique histories, as well as support the histories that are being made today.”