In 1974 Colin McCahon was commissioned by the National Parks Board to create a mural, which forced him to grapple with Tuhoe history, and the limits of his own understanding of Maori spiritual concepts.
A Potent Way of Talking charts a course deep into the Ureweras to Maungapohatu, the scorched earth
years of the 1860s, the arrest of the prophet Rua Kenana, the formation of the vast national park and Tuhoe’s attempts to assert their agency as mana whenua. As artist and iwi sought a resolution to McCahon’s work, all of these threads collide.
Text by Hamish Coney, Laurence Simmons and Linda Tyler + an interview with Gary Langsford.
Photographs by David Cook, John Miller, Max Oettli, Peter Quinn, David Straight and Ans Westra.
Format: Hardback
Imprint: Small New Zealand Publisher
