The Great Separation, Kinetic Mobile

Project: Tatau-pounamu 

In a traditional sense Tatau-pounamu is a peace agreement between two parties, yet if we look closer into the dynamics of this agreement we see that Tatau-pounamu is an event that brings forth a permanent state of change from unstability to stability, Tatau (doorway) implies event whilst Pounamu (New Zealand Jade) implies a sense of permanence.

For this project I decided to focus on the biggest example of Tatau-pounamu I could find, the separation of Ranginui and Papatuanuku (heaven and earth) for this reason I decided to depict the main atua who were involved connected presented in a mobile form to evoke balance, freedom and movement. 

The mobile portrays the exact moment separation occurred, hence we have Tumatauenga and Tumatakaka holding the sacred toki used to severe their parents arms from their embrace. We have Ue-poto pointing to the way out and Tane in his classic propped up position along with Tu-pai.

I organised the atua paddles in a specific order according to our chakra locations, this is because I view the Atua Maori as Dual personifications of our chakras (inner world) and our worlds natural phenomena (outer world).

I relate this knowledge to Tatau-pounamu because once separation occurred then Tane obtained the 3 baskets of knowledge of which all the atua were assigned to their duties.