Professor Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), head of the College of Architecture, University of Auckland, has been elected to the Academy of the Royal Culture Te Apārangi. Dr Brown is a single of 27 new Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellows and Ngā Ahurei Honore a Te Apārangi Honorary Fellows to have attained this honour.
Of the present-day 455 Royal Modern society Te Apārangi Fellows, she is the only a person with a background in architecture and artwork background and is a person of a developing group of distinguished Māori Fellows. As a founding researcher of Māori architectural background and layout, her exploration has been used as a framework in the discipline of Māori architecture within Aotearoa and internationally.
Tough previously students who argued that the region’s woodcarving traditions died out with Pākehā arrival, Dr Brown learned what have been formerly considered as ‘lost’ collections of Māori artwork, top to the repatriation of a considerable taonga (Te Pahi medal), and enabling her hapū to return to their tūrangawaewae tribal lands.
An internationally-renowned scholar of Māori and Pacific art heritage, cultural assets rights and Indigenous digital humanities, Dr Brown is one particular of the very first researchers to develop scholarship and Kaupapa Māori methodology for investigating Indigenous digital society. Throughout her research job, she has been dedicated to preserving Māori intellectual and cultural residence legal rights in artistic and commercial sectors.
Among her published will work is Māori Architecture: from fale to wharenui, the initially e book to chart the genesis and variety of Indigenous structures in Aotearoa New Zealand, supplying deep perception into Māori-made constructions and areas, and their evolution about time. Dr Brown has also co-authored Artwork in Oceania: a new history – a important extensive survey of cultural creation for the area, supported by the Marsden Fund, which received the 2014 Artwork Guide Prize for the most effective English language art or architecture guide in the planet.
The forthcoming Toi Te Mana: a history of Indigenous art from Aotearoa New Zealand with Associate Professor Ngarino Ellis and the late Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (also Marsden-funded), is a in depth account of the heritage of Māori artwork and architecture.
“My whānau and I are honoured and humbled by my election to the fellowship,” states Dr Brown. “It is recognition of the significance of Māori architectural investigate in our expertise of the settlement and advancement of Aotearoa New Zealand by way of setting up and generating.”
“I hope to bring to the Society my awareness and expertise of making and artistic follow research, and Indigenous artwork and architectural historical past exploration, to support in the Society’s mission to hook up to, include and assist various communities, professions and industries.”