Kōrero
I Carry Your Love on My Back

This event marks the opening of the new exhibition I Carry Your Love on My Back by Melanie Tangaere Baldin (Ngāti Porou) and Bui Duy Thanh Mai (Vietnam).

I Carry Your Love on My Back is a mihi to Melanie and Mai’s families and the work that goes into keeping each other well. The exhibition considers the ways that bodies are marked and transformed by care; tangible expressions of the complex love that circulates within families.

This informal, talk-based event will open with the serving of brewed remedies, followed by a conversation between visiting artists Mai, Melanie and curator Jordan Davey-Emms (Pākehā), focusing on the artworks and the challenges and joys of presenting work about family. This will be a relaxed discussion, with opportunities for attendees (and the artists’ family members in attendance) to contribute their own perspectives. The event will end with shared food at the gallery.

Please consider bringing something with you to contribute to the event. Here are some suggestions:

• It could be a story. Perhaps you have a memory of receiving care from a relative in some way, a food/sensation/visual cue you associate with home, a moment of connection with a distant relative, etc…
• It could be food or a non-alcoholic beverage to add to the table.

Doors open/remedies served from 10am; talk begins at 10:15.

Bui Duy Thanh Mai (Mai) practices art to view and converse with the world. Mai experiments with verbal and non-verbal mediums to explore themes of loss and (re)connection, intergenerational care, ephemerality, vulnerability, and gender.

Mai’s work involves the close reading of ordinary objects and daily phenomena, especially those relating to female experiences. She has recently taken up sewing, a technique which puts her at just the right distance to see the world and her own circumstances more clearly. Mai seeks to meditate and mediate between humans, suffering and their sentiments.

Melanie Tangaere Baldwin (Ngāti Porou) is a māmā of two, a multidisciplinary artist, curator, arts educator, and is the former director/founding member of HOEA! Gallery in Tūranga Nui a Kiwa, Gisborne.

Melanie’s work is largely focused on Mana Wāhine, Indigenous and marginalised peoples, and the effects of capitalism, imperialism and settler colonialism on notions of power, beauty and worth. She is interested in expressing the necessity of connection, whānau, and community in her mahi. “I believe in the magic of creating and telling our own stories, of acknowledging the value of our lives and our whakapapa, and extending pūrakau as a means of contributing to a more beautiful and empowered future for our mokopuna.”