One of the most striking works of art at The Landing is Shane Cotton’s?In?The?Earth, which hangs in the dining room of the Cooper Residence, facing east, towards the historic Marsden Cross.
Commissioned in 2009, it?obliquely?references?the?event?marked by the cross – the?meeting and?subsequent?cross-cultural?and spiritual syncretism of?the original?M?ori?inhabitants?of Northland and the?Christian?missionaries who set up New?Zealand’s first European settlement ant?Hohi?Bay,?adjacent to?The Landing.
Cotton’s work often explores themes of identity,?history?and spirituality, drawing on both M?ori and European visual traditions.?In this?work, he reflects?on?the way that some early M?ori embraced, and later adapted, the messages within the Bible to form their own?spiritual lineages within the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The work is one of a series of commissions by Peter Cooper, the?founder?of The Landing, with whom Cotton shares a close relationship and Ng?puhi heritage.?At The Landing,?In the Earth?sits?directly?within Cotton’s?turangawaewae, or ancestral homeland, but several of his works can also be found at The Landing’s sister property,?Britomart, Auckland.
In?the lobby of?The Hotel Britomart, the work?Long Burning Flame, Look to?Whiria?references?how?light shining on the?maunga?(mountain)?Te?Ramaroa?is said to have guided the?great Polynesian explorer Kupe?into the mouth of the Hokianga?Harbour on the west coast of Northland.
Just a few steps away, on the exterior of the historic Excelsior?Stanbeth?Building, Cotton’s five-storey?mural?Maunga?speaks to the way each person who visits or works within the area brings with them a piece of their own?turangawaewae?(represented by their local?maunga?or mountain)?with them.
In the mural, each of the 25?maunga?depicted sits atop or within?a traditional clay pot, like the ones European settlers brought with them,?decorated with?M?ori?carving motifs – another nod to the blending of?M?ori?and European cultural traditions.?The original 25 works on paper that formed the basis of this mural are found throughout The Hotel Britomart.
Together, The Landing and Britomart ?showcase?Cotton’s work in different contexts,?providing?different ways?of celebrating one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most important voices in contemporary art.
