The Home of the Winds nā Ron Bacon i tuhituhi; nā Robert Jahnke kā whakaahua. Auckland, N.Z.: Waiatarua Publishing, 1986.
Robert Jahnke (Ngai Taharora, Te Whanau a Iritekura, Te Whanau a Rakairo o Ngāti Porou, b.1951) is both an artist and educator. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, and a Masters in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts.
In 2006, Jahnke was awarded a Doctor of Māori Studies from Massey University. He is currently Professor of Māori Visual Arts at Massey University, where he helped drive the establishment of the Toioho ki Āpiti arts programme in 1991.
From the 1970s, he has been working as an artist in various media, including drawing and illustrating books, but is most well-known for his sculptural practice which engages in dialogue about post-colonial politics from a Māori worldview. Most recently he has created a series of steel, mirror, glass, and neon light sculptures that reflect a contemporary view of tukutuku panels. The House of the People, The Fish of our Fathers and The Home of the Winds form a trilogy written by Ron Bacon and illustrated by Robert Jahnke. The first of these pukapuka won the Russell Clarke award for illustration in 1978, while The Fish of our Fathers won the 1985 Picture Book Award.
“For Maori the pae is a zone of demarcation and negotiation. Maori art evolves out of a negotiation of the pae… the pae is an inevitable spatial domain that must be negotiated to rationalise one's position as a Maori artist. Invariably, voices from beyond the pae generate tensions in the transition from one side of this domain to the other.”
Ron Bacon(b.1924) was born in Australia but moved to Aotearoa as a child. He was a schoolteacher and realised the importance of telling indigenous stories to children. He went on to a prolific writing career, being at the forefront of retelling pūrākau for children and working with various artists and illustrators – many of whom are represented here.
The Home of the Winds nā Ron Bacon i tuhituhi; nā Robert Jahnke kā whakaahua. Auckland, N.Z.: Waiatarua Publishing, 1986.
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