Te Ika-a-Maui

1962

E. Mervyn Taylor

Accessible

Type

  • Mural

Medium

  • Ceramic

Dimensions

  • H2690 x W3500mm

E. Mervyn Taylor, 'Te Ika-a-Maui' (1962), Takapuna Library, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Image: Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand, 2019

2019–Current

Research Library, Level One, Takapuna Library, 9 The Strand, Takapuna, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

2018–2018

City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, Te Ngākau Civic Square, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington

2014–2015

Toi Rauwhārangi Massey University College of Creative Arts, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington

1962–1995

Commonwealth Pacific Cable Station, 1 Akoranga Drive, Northcote, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Artists
Credit

Collection of Spark Art Trust. On loan to Auckland Council.

Associated Artwork Organisation(s)

Description

In 1961, E. Mervyn Taylor was commissioned by the New Zealand Post Office to develop a mural for the new Commonwealth Pacific Cable terminal in Northcote, Auckland. The terminal was to house the major new COMPAC telephone cable system that provided New Zealand with a much-needed reliable international telephone connectivity.

Taylor responded to the idea of the cable with a metaphor distinct to Aotearoa: the traditional Māori creation story of the demi-god Māui fishing up the North Island, also known as Te Ika-a-Māui (the fish of Māui). A press release about the mural at the time stated, “there was an analogy, [Taylor] thought, between the ‘fishing up’ of New Zealand by Maui and its modern counterpart where the new cable again draws New Zealand out of the Pacific into the telephone systems of the world.”[1]

Created in ceramic tiles, visitors to the terminal could experience Māui and his brothers in close quarters as the mural occupied a full wall within a relatively small foyer area. Over time tiles began falling off the wall and the mural was removed and stored in cardboard boxes in an adjacent office.

In 2014 Taylor's mural was rediscovered -in boxes - by artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, during a commission for public art platform Letting Space with marketing agency JWT. The resulting project, Te Ika-a-Akoranga, included the restoration, digitisation, and photographic reconstruction of the mural in JWT's Queen Street Auckland offices.Following this, the Spark Foundation arranged further restoration work on the mural. Replica tiles were created to fill the gaps left by sixteen missing tiles, and the fully-restored work was exhibited at City Gallery Wellington in 2018 as part of Holloway-Smith's project The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour. Five years after its initial rediscovery it was successfully installed in its new public location at Takapuna Library. The digital component of the Te Ika-a-Akoranga project remains accessible at https://hollowaysmith.nz/te-ika-a-akoranga/#id4

[1] “New Zealand Murals,” Daily News, July 9, 1962.

Further reading: