Whakapapa as a Framework for Māori Futurism
A Literature Review // Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting
“Onamata, anamata: A whakapapa perspective of Māori futurisms”
Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting’s Onamata, Anamata positions whakapapa as the foundation of Māori futurism, rejecting Western linear time in favour of an interconnected continuum where past and future are relationally entwined. This perspective extends beyond human genealogy to include natural elements, Atua, and the cosmos. They argue that whakapapa not only shapes Indigenous identity but also challenges settler-colonial timelines, offering a distinct Māori epistemology for conceptualising the future.
Burgess and Painting define whakapapa as an intergenerational concept where onamata (past) and anamata (future) function simultaneously rather than as separate endpoints.[1] The whakataukī Ka mimiti te puna i Taumārere, ka totō te puna i Hokianga illustrates this cyclical interplay, likening time to water’s ebb and flow.[2] Seeing through the eyes of tīpuna (onamata) and mokopuna (anamata) occurs simultaneously, collapsing the notion of a fixed present into an ongoing continuum.
Burgess and Painting state:
In the intergenerational existence, we are where our mokopuna and tūpuna meet. Here the notion of present is not central to our reality. Indeed, there is no direct translation of the present in te reo Māori.[3]
This idea is echoed by Moana Jackson, who describes Māori time as:
A series of never-ending beginnings... a notion of time that turns back on itself to bring the past into the present and then into the future.[4]
Karl Mika supports this notion in his chapter The Uncertain Kaupapa of Kaupapa Māori, likening the Māori philosophy of time to:
Seemingly paradoxical phenomenon—where a thing is both the origin of, yet immediately collapsed with all other things.[5]
This approach rejects the Western linear approach of time, which separates past, present, and future into isolated progressive stages. The authors contend that Western time systemsbreak Indigenous connections by creating historical separation, which disconnects Māori from both their ancestors and future generations.[6] Burgess and Painting argue that reclaiming whakapapa-based time is a political strategy that challenges colonial structures in practice, not just theory.[7] By reasserting control over temporal frameworks, whakapapa becomes a tool for Indigenous sovereignty, empowering Māori to shape futures beyond settler-colonial constraints. Rather than existing as remnants of a past era, Māori futurism asserts that Māori are both contemporary and forward-moving. Burgess and Painting insist that positive futures for Māori and non-Māori rely on maintaining whanaungatanga—‘good relation’.[8] This Māori concept of relational responsibility reaches beyond one culture and into cultural hybridity. It also extends beyond human connections to cover whenua (land), wai (water), and non-human ancestors.
This is where the Māori concept of time in whakapapa can manifest into material art forms existing from tīpuna and for mokopuna. Māori art becomes a tangible expression of whakapapa and whanaungatanga, according to Burgess and Painting, because materials serve dual functions as both links to ancestors and projections into the future.[9] The integration of traditional practices like raranga (weaving) and tukutuku patterns into modern works represents not a nostalgic return but rather an assertion of Māori futurism, demonstrating that these practices remain active, evolving, and forward-moving.
In an interview with contemporary Māori artist Ngahina Hohaia, she discusses her work He Ara Uru Ora, stating:
I feel compelled to create works that bring elements together and communicate with all the senses at once - the point where sound, space, form, light, and sight converge - I think it’s a naturally Māori way of understanding and communicating. We shape space and speak into space that is non-linear, and that’s where I locate my practice, within a continuum of resistance, restoration and renewal.[10]
This approach further establishes the Māori philosophy of time as relevant to and shaping the contemporary art space in Aotearoa. Megan Tamati-Quennell, curator at Te Papa Museum, describes art history as whakapapa. Speaking specifically about Māori artists, she says:
Before Michael Parekōwhai there was Ralph Hōtere. So without a Ralph Hōtere, would you get a Michael Parekōwhai? Without a Michael Parekōwhai, would you get a Luke Willis Thompson? If someone opens that amount of space, what does it enable for the next generation or the next person? In that way it’s a genealogy.[11]
In this sense, art practice, material, and artists join the collective whakapapa of Māori art. Like Ngahina Hohaia, other contemporary Māori artists such as Te Ara Minhinnick, Maraea Timutimu, and Sarah Hudson, examine how whenua serves as repositories for whakapapa and bridge connections between historical and future contexts. Kutia describes this connection stating:Tradition and futurisms look different in the context of an indigenous culture, outside the tireless reflex to innovate purely for the sake of it. To work with whenua feels like that. Past and present and future rolled in to one. In a way that is not contrived, is not forced, but often effortless.[12] Whakapapa is not just represented in Māori art, it seamlessly embodies the art itself. Rather than simply referencing ancestral knowledge, contemporary Māori artists enact whakapapa through their materials and processes, allowing the cyclical nature of time to be physically embedded within their work.
My own practice aligns with these ideas by engaging with whenua and wool as interconnected materials that carry whakapapa. The use of whenua as pigment is not an extractive process, but one of exchange, where the land is not merely a resource but an active participant in the work. This approach reflects the principles of Papatūānukutanga, acknowledging whenua as an entity with its own mauri, agency, and historical weight. This relational model is not only philosophical but increasingly recognised in law. The recent granting of legal personhood to Mount Taranaki reinforces the idea that whenua is not simply property, but an active political entity. If whenua is an ancestor, as whakapapa asserts, then legal frameworks must recognise its agency.
Māori Futurism reshapes present and future realities by using whakapapa as a framework for understanding time through art. My practice reflects this by incorporating specific materials and installation techniques that engage with whenua and whakapapa conceptually. Through ongoing development, these ideas become tools for resisting colonial structures and asserting Indigenous futures. Onamata, Anamata reinforces whakapapa as a vital framework in Māori art, affirming that Māori have always been, and will continue to be, futurists.
NOTES
1. Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting, Onamata, anamata: A whakapapa
perspective of Māori futurisms, in Whose Futures?, ed. Anna-Maria Murtola and
Shannon Walsh (Auckland, New Zealand: Economic and Social Research Aotearoa,
2020), 208.
2. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 207.
3. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 218.
4. Moana Jackson, “He Manawa Whenua,” He Manawa Whenua Conference, Indigenous Research Conference, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lajTGQN8aAU .
5. Carl Mika, Critical Conversations in Kaupapa Māori, ed. Te K. Hoskins and Alison Jones (Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishers, 2017), 127.6. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 209.
7. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 228.
8. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 218.
9. Burgess and Painting, Onamata, anamata, 219.
10. Ngahina Hohaia, “Ngahina Hohaia: He Ara Uru Ora,” Art News, 2024,
https://artnews.co.nz/he-ara-uru-ora/ .
11. Megan Tamati-Quennell, “Momus: The Podcast,” Estuaries: An International Indigenous Art Criticism Residency, 2023, Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xNvfiQNBZ7r5D6aTOJ6mN.
12. Kahu Kutia, “Whenua is a Portal,” Bulletin, May 31, 2023. Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/212/whenua-is-a-portal