“That’s not what we are, that’s not what we stand for. And that flag, it deserves more.” a Nelson woman said when she saw the New Zealand Flag on a Nelson Art Gallery floor.
Social media has gone viral in its praise over a Nelson womans actions and hope she continues with her vow that she would continue to pick up a controversial “Please Walk on Me” New Zealand flag at an art exhibition each day.
The work, Flagging the Future, 2024, includes a flag displayed on the floor stencilled with the words “Please walk on me”. It has sparked complaints and a heated debate between those offended and those defending artistic expression.
It’s currently on display in the Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, and is scheduled to be taken to two other venues.
In a video posted on social media, Nelson woman Ruth Tipu picked up the flag and hung it on another part of the installation, a harakeke trig station.
Tipu went to the gallery on Monday and picked up the flag, and repeated the action the following day. She vowed to do it every day.
“When they come into the gallery and they see our flag on the ground, and it says, ‘please walk on me’, it distresses my heart.
Tipu said her koro served with the Māori Battalion in World War II and fought for his country under the flag.
A security guard was at the exhibition on Thursday, and the flag was back on the floor.
Several comments on social media asked the question of the gallery owners as to whether they would have allowed the same exhibition which featured the Tino Rangatiratanga flag?
Others criticised the gallery for “allowing such a disgrace,” while others questioned the gallery’s claim to be a “safe place,’ but asked a “safe place for who?”
Nelson RSA president Barry Pont has laid complaints about the artwork. Pont, who served in Vietnam, said the work was “shameful”, and “offensive” for most veterans, for whom the flag was a badge of honour.
They had also laid a complaint with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, he said.
Pont said taking the flag off the floor and hanging it would be an improvement.
In the information panel accompanying the work, artist Diane Prince is quoted as saying the trig was a symbol of territorial conquest and the “civilising progress of a colonial power”.
“By interrupting the patriarchy of the New Zealand flag and trig stations as powerful tools, Diane Prince asks the viewer to investigate these objects,” the panel reads.
many comments about whether the gallery would allow the same exhibit if it was the Tino Rangatiratanga flag
The Suter gallery took a middle ground and wasn’t there to take sides.
“We are about protecting the role of art to reflect and shape our society. If artists don’t have the freedom to be able to reflect, using the language they want to use, then we’re not going to be a very healthy society.” gallery director Toni MacKinnon said
MacKinnon said she was “absolutely not interested in stepping into a debate”.
Controversy in art galleries was “as old as the hills”, she said, and artists since the early 1960s had used the flag as a symbol of disruption.
“There’s nothing new in that,” she said.
Nelson city councilors have been divided on the exhibition, with councilor Tim Skinner laying a complaint, saying it was “more than disrespectful”. But deputy mayor Rohan O’Neill-Stevens said the exhibition was “striking and moving”, particularly in the current political climate in which attacks against Te Tiriti o Waitangi and against Māori had increased significantly.
Mayor Nick Smith said he found this part of the exhibition to be in bad taste, but others “may view this art differently, and that is just how art is”.
