cosmospheres
2024
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Kronfeld Collection was assembled by Gustav and Louisa Kronfeld, a Jewish merchant and a Samoan matriarch. As European empires expanded throughout Moana Oceania and settler and Indigenous worlds collided, the Collection travelled to the Kronfeld family’s home in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Their house, ‘Oli ‘Ula, was named for a garland of fragrant red flowers from the ‘oli tree, once cultivated in Sāmoa. The taonga, measina, and treasures adorned its walls, encircled by this symbolic garland.
The Kronfeld Collection is comprised of treasures from Moana Oceania that Gustav Kronfeld purchased, traded, or was gifted; taonga Māori that he purchased in Aotearoa New Zealand; and gifts to the family that were accessioned by Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa between 1916 and 1993. In 1939, Louisa Kronfeld gifted around 270 taonga, measina, and treasures of the Collection to Te Papa, then known as the Dominion Museum.
As a descendant of the Kronfeld family, my doctoral research into my great-great-grandparents’ Collection seeks to ‘house’ the taonga and measina and enliven their systems of relation. The artworks, or cosmospheres, digitally render taonga and measina from the Collection as three-dimensional point clouds, and immerse them in kaleidoscopic moving-image lifeworlds. Engaging the reparative notion of ‘tuitui’ (sewing, threading, binding), the project proposes that rendering ancestral treasures using contemporary technologies might offer a restoration of relations. Looking to whakapapa and vā as forms of provenance, the artworks bring these treasures out from the basement and ‘into the light,’ and enact the reciprocity of the gift, generations later.
The cosmospheres house two ‘ie tōga (fine mats), gifted to the family by Queen Sālote Tupou III and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara upon Leo Lea‘ega Kronfeld’s death in 1947; a tanoa fai‘ava (kava bowl) attributed to Tupua Malietoa To‘oa Matā‘afa Iosefo, Paramount Chief of Sāmoa from 1900–1912 and Louisa’s relation; a toki (adze) found at Long Bay in the 1930s and held by Samuel Tonga Kronfeld until after his death in 1977; a māhē (sinker) gifted by Sam in 1928 to the Auckland Institute and Museum. 3D scanning of a hoe parāoa (whalebone paddle), purchased by Gustav in Tāmaki Makaurau but originally from Te Tai Tokerau, was not permitted. The rendering of the hoe indicates an echo, an elsewhere presence, an unfinished journey.
With thanks to Lauamanu and the Laumua o Tumua o Afega for contributing their weaving to the ‘ie tōga cosmospheres; Rāhana Tito-Taylor (Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu, Ngāti Whātua Kaipara, Waikato Tainui) for his sonic response in the hoe parāoa cosmosphere, and Salvador Brown (Sāmoa, Tuvalu, Gaelic, Norse) for his sonic responses in the ‘ie tōga, tanoa fai‘ava, toki, and māhē cosmospheres.
Acknowledgements to Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum for permission to 3D scan the two ‘ie tōga (1987.700, 52588/52589), toki (1977.88, 26356), and māhē (1928.28, 614812); and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa for permission to 3D scan the tanoa fai‘ava (FE010512).