Linda Munn
Ngāti Manu, Ngā Potiki, Te Ātiawa ki Ngāi Tahu
Linda Munn’s clay and painting practice reinforces principles of tino rangatiratanga (Māori self-determination). She uses ancestral knowledge to explore the metaphysical and the place of spirituality in Māori cultural life.
Munn in 1995 studied towards a Diploma in Māori art and Design Technology at Northland Polytechnic under the guidance of Anne Philbin, Manos Nathan and Allen Wihongi. She completed a Diploma in Art at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic in 2008 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Waiariki Polytechnic in 2009.
In 1989, with Hiraina Marsden and Jan Dobson, she designed the Tino Rangatiratanga flag as a way of unifying Māori concerns about the 1990 celebrations commemorating 150 years of Māori and Pākehā relations. Today, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag is mandated as the national Māori flag and is a symbol of Māori resistance and resilience.
Art and Activism - One of the same
As indigenous women artists Dianne, Linda and Tāwera will discuss their notions of art as activism. Some of the topics explored in this session will include aboriginal and indigenous perspectives within the arts, truths and untruths, popular nationhood ideologies and the way in which art practice can reinforce principles of tino rangatiratanga and the sovereignty of Native nations. Tāwera will discuss the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples that emerged from Indigenous communities during the cultural, social, and political renaissance era of the ’60s and ’70s. Becoming a good ancestor should be, if not already, at the forefront of every indigenous native mind in the world. We can do this by thriving and not just surviving!
