Number nine Eden Crescent is beside a brick wall from which the spring Te Wai Ariki emerges. Until 1976, a beautiful two-storey house with twenty-something rooms, wide balconies and stained-glass windows stood here. The house was named ‘Oli ‘Ula, in reference to the fragrant red flower of the Samoan ‘oli tree. Built in the early 1900s by Emily Parr’s great-great-grandparents, Gustav Kronfeld, a Jewish merchant, and Louisa Silveira of Lotofaga, the walls were adorned with measina. ʻOli ‘Ula was a vibrant home for Gustav and Louisa’s ten children and Moana peoples travelling to Tāmaki Makaurau.

Through the Time Spiral: ʻOli ʻUla reconstructs this home using a suʻifefiloi methodology, reflecting the Sāmoan tradition of making flower garlands in which a mixture of flowers are sewn together and strung into a necklace, an ‘ula. The walkthrough is guided by a voiceover assembled from recorded memories of Moe (Gustav and Louisa’s eighth child) and his son Tony. Remaining faithful to their words, Emily brings them into the present tense and links their memories with her own words — stringing the flowers into the ‘ula.

During the First World War, Gustav was interned on Te Motu-a-Ihenga under suspicion of aiding the Germans, spending several years separated from his family. Among Emily’s family archives from this period are messages that travelled between postal censors and military authorities; the family and the government; the island and ‘Oli ‘Ula. The work imagines Te Wai Ariki as a witness to these unfolding histories, and a portal into a time spiral.

BIOGRAPHY

Emily Parr is an artist and researcher of Ngāi Te Rangi, Moana, and Pākehā descent living in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her moving-image practice explores relational ecologies of Te Moananui-a-Kiwa. Emily’s recent body of work on settler-indigenous relationships traverses oceans and centuries, seeking stories in archives and waters on haerenga to her ancestral homelands of Tauranga Moana, Sāmoa and Tonga. Her current doctoral research considers the responsibilities she has inherited through her ancestral legacies and, in particular, to her family’s collection held by museums. Emily is part of the Vā Moana cluster at AUT, a research associate with Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, and a 2024 Springboard Award recipient.

Image: Emily Parr, Through the Time Spiral: ʻOli ʻUla, 2021. Image still. Single-channel video and sound, 12m 30s. Image courtesy of the artist.

Related to the exhibition: This is the house that jack built