Into the void

Into the void

I whānau mai a Peter Robinson i Hakatere, ā, i ako ia ki ngā tikanga o te mahi tārei i Te Kura Toi o Ilam, mai i te tau 1985-1989. Mai i taua wā, kua huri te aro o Robinson ki ngā kātū matū me ngā tūkanga huhua, pērā i te pani, i te tā, i te toi-ataata, me ngā tikanga whakairi. Ahakoa te pūkenga, kua whakawhenuatia a Robinson ki ngā kaupapa wetiweti, arā, ko hōna āhua me tōna kiko i puta mai i te pūtahitanga o whakararuraru me pākiki.

He mārama te kite i tēnei āhuatanga i roto o Into the Void, arā, ka whākina e Robinson te ao koiora Māori, Pākehā hoki, hei mea wetewete. I whakaputaina mō te whakaaturanga takitahi a te ringatoi, e kīia ana ko Divine Comedy, i Te Whare Pīataata o Govett-Brewster, i te tau 2001, me te aha, koinei tētehi o ngā tānga e whā i roto i tētehi whakaaturanga whakapātaritari i ngā rongo o te korekore.

“Tē taea e tētehi mea te puta mai i te kore; tē taea e tētehi mea te ngaro ki te kore, i tua atu i te tauoranga.” – Nā Henning Genz, nō roto mai i Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space, 1999.

Ka raua tēnei whakapae ki tētehi pae tāhūroa, hei tuku i tētehi reo ā-hiko. Ko ngā tahi me ngā kore ka takirua hei ripanga I pū matua me ngā O pū matua, e hua ake ai ko Io-matua-kore, tērā kāore i whai mātua. I ngā kōrero ōrokohanga o te ao Māori, ko Io te atua nui, nō mua noa atu i Te Kore, i puta ai Te Pō ki Te Ao Mārama.

Ka tohea tonutia te pātai mō Io, arā, nō mua i te taenga mai o te Pākehā, nā ngā Mihingare rānei i whakaū i a Io ki te ao Māori. Mēnā nā Io a Te Kore i hanga, he aha te hanganga ake o Te Kore? Ka tāwariwari ngā raraunga tōrunga, tōraro hoki, e noho ana i te porotaka. Ka tautuku ngā tirohanga ki te ao, arā, ko kanohi kitea me matangaro e tōhipahipa ana. Ētia nei he whakapapa ngā whakautu, arā, he tupu ngā hononga: ko tēnei, me tēnei, me tēnei, me te huhua noa atu.


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Peter Robinson was born in Hakatere Ashburton and studied sculpture at Ilam School of Fine Arts from 1985–1989. In the years since, Robinson has turned to a variety of materials and methods including painting, drawing, digital media, and installation. Regardless of discipline, Robinson’s making is grounded by a trickster kaupapa, where form and content regularly converge through disruption and questioning.
This approach is clear within Into the Void, in which Robinson offers up both Māori and European metaphysics for deciphering. Produced for the artist’s solo exhibition Divine Comedy at the Govett-Brewster in 2001, the print was one of four in an exhibition interrogating notions of nothing-ness.

“Nothing can spring into existence from the void; nothing can vanish into the void except existence”. — Henning Genz, Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space, 1999.

This paradox is encrypted into a field of binary code, computing’s primary language. Ones and zeroes double as a matrix of capital I’s and O’s, revealing Io-matua-kore, the parentless one. In Māori creation, Io sits as supreme being, preceding even Te Kore, the void of latent potential from which worlds emerge.
The question of Io as either a pre-colonial or missionary influenced concept in Te Ao Māori continues to be debated. If Io oversees Te Kore, what does it mean for the creation of the void itself? Data vibrates in positive and negative, nested in concentric rings. A feedback loop of worldviews, presence, and absence recurs back and forth. Like whakapapa or nuclear fission, answers are not conditional (this or that) but increasingly relational: this, and this, and this, and more.

— Madison Kelly (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Pākehā), 2024