through the time spiral
2021-2022
Number nine Eden Crescent is beside a brick wall from which the spring Te Wai Ariki emerges. Until 1976, a beautiful two-storey house with twenty-something rooms, wide balconies and stained-glass windows stood here. The house was named ‘Oli ‘Ula, in reference to the fragrant red flower of the Samoan ‘oli tree. Built in the early 1900s by my great-great-grandparents, Gustav Kronfeld, a Jewish merchant, and Louisa Silveira of Lotofaga, the walls were adorned with measina. ʻOli ‘Ula was a vibrant home for Gustav and Louisa’s ten children and Moana peoples travelling to Tāmaki Makaurau.
Through the Time Spiral: ʻOli ʻUla reconstructs this home using a su’ifefiloi methodology, reflecting the Samoan tradition of making flower garlands in which a mixture of flowers are sewn together and strung into a necklace, an ‘ula. The walkthrough is guided by a voiceover assembled from recorded memories of Moe (Gustav and Louisa’s eighth child) and his son Tony. Remaining faithful to their words, I bring them into the present tense and link their memories with my own words — stringing the flowers into the ‘ula.
During the First World War, Gustav was interned on Te Motu-a-Ihenga under suspicion of aiding the Germans, spending several years separated from his family. Among my family’s archive from this period are messages that travelled between postal censors and military authorities; the family and the government; the island and ‘Oli ‘Ula. The work imagines Te Wai Ariki as a witness to these unfolding histories, and a portal into a time spiral.
Through the Time Spiral: Te Muri I revisits camping trips my family made to a small bay on the Mahurangi Peninsula during the early 1900s. Te Muri is only accessible by foot across a stream at low tide, and in this work, the tidal stream is imagined as the threshold to a time spiral. Drawing on my family’s archival material, I re-tell stories that were recorded by the campers as they pose for photographs in fields and on the beach.
My great-great-grandparents, Gustav and Louisa Kronfeld, made these trips over many summers with their children in tow. They were joined by family visiting from Sāmoa, girls in their care from the Islands, and other families who share similar stories of cultural multiplicity and mobility. These trips manifest their expansive web of relations across the moana, which they continued to nurture after migrating to Aotearoa.
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In Through the Time Spiral: Te Muri II, I sit near my great-great-grandmother, Louisa Kronfeld. My brother, D’arcy, is beside our nana, Tui; our great-grandfather, Sam Kronfeld; and Sam’s brother-in-law, Otto Wolfgramm. My father, David, stands with his great-grandfather, Gustav Kronfeld.