"Te Tiriti" (The Treaty)

Abstract

The founding document of present day New Zealand, the nine sheets of the "Treaty of Waitangi," is explored in terms of the Maori chief’s signatures and their significance in European and tribal custom. The original signatures were extremely small as the space designated for them was only 5 mm — they were dominated by the attempted English spelling of the chiefs’ names. The author enlarged the signatures in order to better examine their form and study their inter-relationships. These signatures were further enlarged and manipulated to become a series of nine silkscreen prints celebrating the event.