In Conversation with Armando Perla: Market Knowledge, Circulation, and Indigenous Adornment

Venue: Te Papa Tongarewa, National Museum of New Zealand

Reading Room, Level 4

Date: Thursday 22 January

Time: 4:00–5:30 pm

Free event

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in collaboration with Te Whare Hēra, warmly invites you to a public conversation with curator and scholar Armando Perla, presented as part of their residency at Te Whare Hēra.

This talk brings together Perla’s long-term curatorial and research practice with a close examination of a living collection of Indigenous textiles, adornment, and sculptural works from Abya Yala (a Kuna term used by many Indigenous nations to refer to the Americas). Built over the past two decades through markets, powwows, studio visits, and sustained relationships across Canada, the United Sates, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador the collection foregrounds materials, techniques, and forms of knowledge that move across territories, waters, and generations.

Focusing on Cemanahuac (the Nahua word used to refer to Mesoamerica) in particular, Perla will reflect on works in their collection that engage weaving, carving, jade, ceramics, and bodily adornment, tracing resonances between Indigenous material practices in Abya Yala and those of Māori and Pacific artists encountered during the residency in Aotearoa. Rather than presenting the collection as a static archive, the conversation centers on the stories, relations, and responsibilities embedded in these works, and on collecting as a relational obligation, land-attuned practice shaped by movement, trade, and reciprocity.

Rather than culminating in a conventional exhibition format, this residency concludes with a provisional, market-informed curatorial gesture: a temporary presentation structured through Indigenous market women methodologies. Drawing on Perla’s own lineage of market women, this approach understands display as a form of circulation, encounter, and exchange, where knowledge is activated through proximity, movement, and storytelling rather than fixed institutional hierarchies. 

The talk also marks a moment of convergence at the conclusion of Perla’s residency, bringing together their doctoral research, writing, studio visits, and curatorial dialogue.  It offers insight into this market-based mode of presentation developed during the residency, while opening space for conversation between Indigenous artists and curators from across the Pacific, with attention to shared concerns around material knowledge, ecology, and Indigenous continuity.

The conversation will be moderated by Isaac Te Awa, Curator Mātauranga Māori at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Public Performance by Orama Nigou, 29 October, 10am, Massey Cinema.

Please join us for the final day of Orama Nigou’s residency, as the inaugural NOHO French Pacific artist in residence at Te Whare Hēra, for a public performance and artist talk.

Orama’s practice has a deep connection with her Polynesian heritage. Working with feathers, stitching, and her own body, she explores the intimacy of the creative process, memory and transmission, self-building and human transformation / metamorphosis.

In this new cycle of creation, the artist looks forward to taking her crafting gestures into performance, becoming the support, the human tapa on which the feathers will be sewn.

With thanks to the French Embassy and Villa Antipode for supporting this residency, and to Wellington City Council and Massey University for the partnership that makes Te Whare Hēra possible.

Seven years ago, Orama Nigou had the opportunity to study an artifact that could be a remnant of a maro'ura at the museum of quai Branly, Paris.
Maro'uras were royal sacred belts entirely sewn with feathers that were believed to have all disappeared and if the piece mentioned above is really a maro'ura, then it could be the last fragment in the world.

The damaged nature of the object allowed the artist to understand its structure and reconnect with the ancient technique.

Since then, she has been mastering the gestures that are now a fundamental part of her artistic practice.

In this workshop she invites you to both discover her universe and connect with a part of French Polynesia's pre-colonial heritage.

After a presentation by the artist, you will be initiated to the feather techniques from the potential remnant of a maro'ura and will practice them by making your own creation by embroidering a small canvas.

This workshop is available to 6 attendees, on two separate occasions - Saturday 18th October, and Sunday 19th October. With only 12 spaces available in total, register your interest quickly via Eventbrite.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-the-sewn-feathers-of-the-maroura-sunday-session-tickets-1712420900009?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Orama’s residency is supported by the French Embassy, and Villa Antipode NOHO Residency Programme, as well as Massey University’s Toi Rauwhārangi School of Art and Wellington City Council.

Seven years ago, Orama Nigou had the opportunity to study an artifact that could be a remnant of a maro'ura at the museum of quai Branly, Paris.
Maro'uras were royal sacred belts entirely sewn with feathers that were believed to have all disappeared and if the piece mentioned above is really a maro'ura, then it could be the last fragment in the world.

The damaged nature of the object allowed the artist to understand its structure and reconnect with the ancient technique.

Since then, she has been mastering the gestures that are now a fundamental part of her artistic practice.

In this workshop she invites you to both discover her universe and connect with a part of French Polynesia's pre-colonial heritage.

After a presentation by the artist, you will be initiated to the feather techniques from the potential remnant of a maro'ura and will practice them by making your own creation by embroidering a small canvas.

This workshop is available to 6 attendees, on two separate occasions - Saturday 18th October, and Sunday 19th October. With only 12 spaces available in total, register your interest quickly via Eventbrite.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-the-sewn-feathers-of-the-maroura-saturday-session-tickets-1712418442659?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Orama’s residency is supported by the French Embassy, and Villa Antipode NOHO Residency Programme, as well as Massey University’s Toi Rauwhārangi School of Art and Wellington City Council.