This artwork was commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, with the support of Auckland Art Gallery Contemporary Benefactors and The Chartwell Trust. Special thanks to Leighs Construction, Mainfreight, Van der Meer Consulting, Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, for their help in enabling the people of Ōtautahi Christchurch to experience this work as part of SCAPE Public Art Season 2024: Material / Immaterial Worlds.

In Carry Me With You, three concentric circles ascend skywards in reference to the pūrākau (narrative) of Tāne Mahuta and his ascent to the heavers to obtain, by some accounts, three kete or baskets of knowledge.

Artist Darcell Apelu says this work is not a retelling of Tāne’s journey, but a “centring of knowledge embodied in a being or person.” This inherited knowledge “held innately in the body” is a recurring theme in Darcell’s work. As she says, “I position myself as the one to carry my whanau name and story.”

While the circular structures look like baskets, they are also poutama, a stepped design with many layers of meaning in te ao Māori. Poutama refers to scaffolding or advancement of knowledge, but the artist has inverted the shape to conjure up the idea of knowledge flowing back and forth between tuakana and teina (e.g., elder and younger sibling) or across generations. 

Darcell has designed this artwork so that scale depends on the viewer. Walk under and through; notice how light changes as your body moves. The three colours are significant: grey-black for obsidian, green for pounamu, and orange-yellow for clay. In this way Darcell intends that you are symbolically “in” the whenua. 

Watch Darcell Apelu talk about Carry Me With You (4 minutes) at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki