'This is a story about the power of art to help us find a way through the darkness. It is about how art can bring out the best in us, and the worst. The artworks in question are five wooden panels carved in the late 1700s by relatives in Taranaki.' Commissioned, created, mounted, dismantled, hidden, found, sold, smuggled, on-sold, advertised for auction, withdrawn from auction, touched, judged, debated, locked up, hidden, found, re-sold, returned. This stunning book examines how five interconnected archival records, Te Motunui Epa, have journeyed across the world and changed international law, practices and understanding on the protection and repatriation of stolen cultural treasures. By placing these taonga/tupuna at the centre of the story, Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Atiawa) present a narrative, richly illustrated, that provides a fascinating and rare account of art, ancestors and power.
Author Biography:
Dr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Atiawa) is an historian, archivist, journalist and curator. She is the author of The Parihaka Album: Lest We Forget (Huia, 2009), Stop Press: The Last Days of Newspapers (Scribe, 2013) and Ko Taranaki Te Maunga (Bridget Williams Books, 2018). Dr Buchanan's archival expertise has included roles such as Curator, Germaine Greer Archive, University of Melbourne Archives, and publications in scholarly journals including Te Pouhere Korero, The Journal of Social History and Archivaria. Her writing has been translated into Maori, Farsi and French and published across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.
