Overview
Maureen Lander (born 1942) is of Ngāpuhi (Te Hikutu subtribe) and Pākehā (New Zealand European) descent. She has taught for many years, exhibited her art work nationally and internationally, and written for various publications.
Learning and teaching
Maureen Lander began learning cloak-making skills from Diggeress Te Kanawa in 1984 and started exhibiting her art work in 1986. Her contemporary work draws inspiration from the kākahu (cloaks) and woven taonga (treasures) in museums in New Zealand and overseas.
Maureen researched and taught Māori fibre arts for many years at Auckland University. In 2002, she was awarded a Doctorate in Fine Arts from Auckland University - and an inaugural Māori Academic Excellence Award, Fine Arts, Music, and Performing Arts, Te Tohu Toi Ururangi, sponsored by Toi Māori.
Recent work
Since retiring from her university lectureship at the end of 2007, Maureen has continued to make and exhibit work. She has been able to spend time in Ōmāpere, joining with artists and weavers in the small communities around Hokianga, where her ancestors lived and her mother grew up.
Maureen’s most recent solo exhibition, An Ephemeral Practice, was a survey of her work as one of the four invited artists in the exhibition series Te Taumata, which ran during Auckland’s 2011 Matariki celebrations.
Exhibitions
• 2011 - An Ephemeral Practice, Northart Gallery, Northcote, Te Taumata exhibition series, Auckland Matariki festival
• 2009 - Moetangi. A lullaby + A lament in Hotere Country, Village Arts, Kohukohu, Hokianga
• 2007 - Tu Worlds installation in Conversations Across Time, Whakawhiti Korero, a series of artists’ interventions, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch
• 2006-08 - Metakete installation in Pasifika Styles, Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, England
• 2004-07 - Wai o te Marama installation in The Eternal Thread, Te Aho Mutunga Kore exhibition, Pātaka, Porirua, then touring venues in New Zealand and the United States
• 2002 - Mrs Cook’s Kete, a collaborative installation with Christine Hellyar, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, England
Writing
• Lander, M R. ‘Fibre Fragments from the Raupa Site, Hauraki Plains’, in Records of Auckland Institute and Museum, vol 29, 1992, pages 7-23
• Lander, M R and Wood, B. Glorified Scales. Auckland: Maureen Lander, 2001
• Lander, M R, Sullivan, R, and Wood, B. Shade House. Whangarei: Whangarei Art Museum, 2004
• Lander, M R and Maihi, T. He Kete He Korero. Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2005