The Cubeside Annex is a historical building in Te Papaioea Palmerston North, belonging to Te Pūtahi-a-Toi and Toioho ki Āpiti staff and students, and a home to Māori artists and academics. Cubeside Annex was first created there, as a replica of the studio space where Java Bentley was working. Knowing the provenance of the building inspired Bentley to celebrate and reciprocate the mana the house had provided as shelter before her.

First assembled as a whare, Kāingatahi Hangarua, the work has been exhibited at the Cubeside Annex and Te Manawa Museum. For its presentation at Grace Aotearoa, the work has been reconfigured for the first time in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. At its centre are questions of whakapapa, exchange and sustainability.

The provenance of all things, materials and people, belongs to the beginning; the land. Tracing the whakapapa of all things transfers belonging from the land to the people encompassing what it is to be tangata whenua. Thus our responsibility to all things belongs to a reciprocal relationship. Sustainable discourse is just one part of this whakapapa which is connection. When there is connection and belonging to all things, our relationship between each other becomes an expansive space.

The question then becomes, if we understand the provenance of materials and all things, what cycles must be reused and what cycles must be separate pieces? This space begins at home. It holds four walls which make up the worlds around you and the foundation supported by the land. When those walls separate, the balance shifts but the land remains the same.

The question Bentley took with her to her Masters was, when something feels off or the mauri of an encounter, material or experience feels wrong, how do you let it go? The answer was whakapapa and provenance, looking backwards into the future.

In pūrākau, when the crevices of the whare are unblocked, te ao mārama enters te pō. This moment of transformation asks wāhine to enter a new cycle of new mauri. The house was built separately to exist separately. Made in parts and assembled as a whole, it was always intended to be broken up again into parts and taken back home. Now the crevices of the whare have been unblocked and the transformation that happens between the state of te pō and te ao mārama has resumed.

The house comes with a responsibility for the reciprocal nature of the mauri to continue unblocked. Each part of the house is separated, but if the house needs to be put back together again, it must be returned, remaining connected wherever the parts may be. In good faith, the parts of the whare may never come back together again.

Grace and the artist would like to acknowledge Karangawai Marsh, Felixe Laing, Robyn Walton, Scott Facer, and the artist’s family.