Check your expectations at the door

A Moleta family outing.

When I began this practice of journalling my thoughts, I set no conscious parameters around the frequency, length, or the seriousness of the topics I would ponder. The freedom to just write, and not be bound by the need to research every component and maintain a rigorous citation habit, is one that I’m still relishing. Don’t get me wrong - I loved engaging in more academic practice while I was studying in the Masters programme at Massey - I learned how to do that so much more rigorously than I’d ever understood before. But this space of freeform prose is pretty satisfying too. Sometimes, image and words are inherently connected to each other. Frequently, the words come, and I’m finding an image to support it at least tangentially.

In this instance, the image happened first.

In fact, this image happened probably 80 years ago, or something nearto. I’m not sure who took it, but I found it in a wirebound photograph album, under yellowing plastic, among a treasure trove of other memories collected by my Great Aunt Mafalda. This caught my eye in particular because of something I remembered from the conversations I recorded with my mother and aunt.

Some context, for anyone who is new to this project of mine that delves into the plurality of memory, and my family’s colonial settler experience on Rangitoto ki te Tonga | D’Urville Island. My mother grew up in that isolated place, with her four siblings, the third generation of the Italian migrants who farmed the land at the northern end of the island. This photograph shows my family - Great Grandpa Antonino standing in the prow, possibly Rosa sitting next to him. At this time, there weren’t any public roads on the island, and getting anywhere at all was by water. I don’t know that they loaded this many people into the boat on a daily basis - my understanding is that it was unusual for them to travel any great distance. My mother, Marie-Jean Moleta said, “There weren’t many times that we went anywhere.  Mostly we were stuck there.  Which is why I always think of it as being extremely lonely.” Aunty Gaye added this pertinent detail: “Whenever we went anywhere it had to be by boat. Later on we had the road to Kapowai.  We still had to get the boat across the pass. I remember there being about 3 inches between the water and the top of the boat.  There were 7 of us in there and all of our groceries.  We had to keep still.” That memory is of her own family - my grandfather Vincenzo and grandma Beryl, and the 5 children. This photograph, however, is a generation back, and a few more bodies were packed into the bow. I can’t imagine I’d put my hand up for an excursion if this precarious situation is what it involved, but I guess if you hardly ever escape the remote bay you live in, the desire to be part of an out-of-home adventure might outweigh the danger.

This image is more than a record of a moment in the past. It triggers a mycelium network of thoughts. I could write about how important it is to be part of a gang, - the advantages of that kind of tribal identity, for knowing where you’re going and what the rules are. Equally I might discuss the ways that risk and reward are symbiotically linked, and how that might apply to my art-making. A modest and ill-timed wave could have landed them all in the sea, and I presume that though they all likely knew how to swim, it would’ve been very difficult to make it to shore in those skirts. Nevertheless, attending a community event regardless of discomfort or risk would have been so socially advantageous. Similarly, when I make work that isn’t completely safe, nice, respectable, …that challenges the nostalgia I’m often in service of, my audience might be provoked to some new kind of thinking. I might cause change, in a productive way.

I’m thinking about appearance versus reality. This photograph implies that the people in the boat are a happy and a cohesive unit, when the reality was that there were conflicts and divisions that quite catastrophically changed familial relations across two generations of Moletas who lived on D’Urville. The smiling family en-route to a merry gathering were as capable of brewing resentments as anyone in the pressure cooker of isolation that was their daily experience.

Another topic rising from this photograph could be the humble making-do of our ancestors, and how I might compare that to my own life, and the shabby car I drive that on one day might be ferrying a load of stinky rowers home from training, a resident artist to a gallery event, and a $700 grocery shop to our house to sustain us for just over a week. We take less physical risks in contemporary life, and perhaps have developed less practical knowledge about our limitations. It could be about the dignity of dressing in your ‘Sunday Best’, when you’re going from somewhere rural to somewhere equally rural, but you have a reputation to uphold. I spend more time than I like to admit in stretchy clothes because I just can’t be bothered dressing to be admired, but when occasion demands it, I’ll make an effort and put a face on and my energy generally lifts to meet the need. There’s something to be said about putting your best foot forward.

Above all, I imagine the feelings associated with the occasion captured here. Each Moleta in that small boat is the centre of their own universe, with all of the complexity of action and relation and hope that each of us carries around in our heads. For that instant though, they were likely quite universally, collaboratively captivated by the excitement of where they have come from or are going to, and the thrill of being all together in the boat on a sunny day with the water gently lapping and ordinary labour set aside for the duration. There’s something so ‘in the moment’ about this. I am generally not good at appreciating those kinds of moments as much as I wish. This photograph reveals something celebratory about a shared lived experience. When I sat this morning in the school hall, watching Vinnie and his friends lead the last mihi whakatau of their primary school career, I was with some lovely other parents who I’ve come to know over the past 8 years. We all got a little choked up with the kōrero and waiata and the visible pride we each had in our offspring. I didn’t think about work or obligation while that happened, and really, in spite of great relief to be almost finished with our time at the local state primary, we were also feeling an abundance of affection, for favourite teachers, and for the teenagers we’ve seen grow from new-entrant to this awkward but cool early teen era.

I love this about photography, in particular. That one frame can so elegantly convey a plethora of intentions, and be the catalyst for so many ideas. And my interpretation of this image will likely diverge significantly from yours. My biggest takeaway from spending time with this photograph is the concept of going somewhere both new and familiar. I’m making a new moving-still artwork to show at Exposure 2025 at Toi Rauwhārangi, College of Creative Arts, Massey University. For the first time I feel like my photographic skill is the least important thing about the work, in fact, the photography component isn’t even mine. But hopefully viewing the installation will ignite new kinds of thinking for the audience who experience it. I’ll freely admit I am curious about how it’ll be received. I’ve imagined all kinds of responses, ranging from boredom and disdain, to sentimental affection. The feedback I had over the last couple of years as I began to explore this art practice is that I’m often loading work with so much significance that there’s no room for alternative reading. One thing I am more confident about with this new effort is that it’s both eerily specific and open at the same time.

I’m not going to say any more than that, except come along, from 8th -21st November, 10am-4pm each day. I’ll do some gallery-sitting turns when the time comes, so if you want to see me, drop me a line to find out when I’ll be there.