Dinsdale, D.M. (2018). “A collection of fourteen custom swing coats and accessories.” Aroha Atu Aotearoa. Exhibition.. [re-purposed woollen blankets, assorted artifacts, printed cotton fabric, embroidery, wool] Tauranga, New Zealand: The Peoples Gallery at The Incubator, Historic Village. Photography Anne Shirley – Fuse Media

viv davy writes about a textile artist who draws on the material heritage of Aotearoa New Zealand to connect across generations.

Honouring the past with a clearly focused eye on the future, Donna Dinsdale creates garments to stretch our preconceived ideas of identity and roots. Quintessential cultural icons are expertly re-envisioned using the human body as a foundation for form. Donna’s current making practice is based primarily on the use of the up-cycled pure NZ vintage Wool blanket, which has not only been gifted to her but has all the cultural connotations of blankets in a colonised society where identity is constantly being defined and redefined by shifting dominant power structures. As the grey wool blankets were standard issue for our troops, the colourful domestic versions were almost standard issue for New Zealanders for many decades. These blankets form an intrinsic part of our culture, resonating with overtones of our agricultural dependence, our need to be self-sufficient as a manufacturing nation before globalisation and our volatile, often harsh, island environment. Highly prized not only for their physical characteristics but also because of their function as memory vessels for New Zealanders, these blankets have become a foundational Kiwi icon. However, in Aotearoa, they are also symbolically vested with the complex history of value exchange and hierarchical power structures based on their earliest uses in our nation. Creating her social statements through this fabric, Donna has provided a vehicle for re-appraisal of previous value and power exchanges and of how they are informing the present.

Choosing to use these up-cycled blankets as her primary material was an adjustment for Donna and her making process. Approaching these icons as a raw material, laying a predetermined pattern down upon the fabric and cutting it into a prescribed form was a creative hurdle that Donna struggled with. Honouring all the cultural significance of this material, she set aside her traditional pattern maker approach to use, instead, a draping technique to form her works. As she described to me, “cutting into the blankets came with immense responsibility, I didn’t want to devalue the resource, I wanted to give each blanket the respect it deserved without wastage.” The blankets are draped, sculpted and created into three-dimensional pieces on the mannequin. “I find there is an absence of restrictions in the free form draping method which enables me to push boundaries of traditional garment structure, the connection I feel to the work becomes more intimate and intuitive.”

Dinsdale, D.M. (2018). “Nannie Katie Swing Coat.” Aroha Atu Aotearoa Exhibition Catalogue.. [re-purposed woollen blankets, assorted artifacts, printed cotton fabric, embroidery, wool] Tauranga, New Zealand: The Peoples Gallery at The Incubator, Historic Village. Photography Anne Shirley – Fuse Media

Dinsdale, D.M. (2018). “Nannie Katie Swing Coat.” Aroha Atu Aotearoa Exhibition Catalogue.. [re-purposed woollen blankets, assorted artifacts, printed cotton fabric, embroidery, wool] Tauranga, New Zealand: The Peoples Gallery at The Incubator, Historic Village. Photography Anne Shirley – Fuse Media

The primary guide for Donna’s art and teaching practices is her deeply seated reverence for her extended whanau, the Māori people of Ngāti Marukukere, Hāpu of Tapuika Iwi, of the Te Arawa Waka in the Bay of Plenty region, and the rich cultural heritage and diversity they represent.

As an acknowledgement of these shared relationships, Donna was gifted the title for her recent exhibition by her extended whānau,  He Korowai Mahana. To Be Cloaked In The Comfort Of Whakapapa, acknowledging the richness of the intertwining of cultures and lives that surround her, exchanges beyond the value of money – the Cloak of Whakapapa. (lineage.) This exhibition included the new work “Pakanga – Heat of the battle” and elements of Aroha Atu Aotearoa. The essence of our wahine.

Donna states, “I define myself as a female of Pakeha ancestry who has married a Māori male and mothered two bi-cultural children, and thus by marriage have been integrated into an extended whānau, that continuously and generously wrap me in their world. I am confident in the skin I sit in every day—the challenge comes from sharing my life with a husband who has different values, beliefs and behaviours to mine.”  This marriage and all its associated experiences have focused cultural values, heritage and a sense of place as the foundations of Donna’s art practice.

Dinsdale, D.M. (2023). “Pakanga -The Heat of Battle.” He Korowai Mahana: to be cloaked in the comfort of whakapapa. Exhibition. [re-purposed woollen blankets, embroidery, wool, assorted artifacts]. Exhibition at from out of the blue studio gallery, Ōpunakē, New Zealand. Photography Anne Shirley – Fuse Media

The man’s jacket is crafted from a vintage Royal New Zealand Navy issue blanket that was gifted by John’s whānau. The woman’s cape is created from a military blanket gifted to Donna by her Mother, who acquired it through her community support role at a local second-hand shop. Creating the garments from this foundation was a journey into the vaults of Donna’s extended and intergenerational family and their textile history. The garments celebrate the close bond between Dudley and his Mother, and the letters he wrote home are the source of many of the words used in the works, as well as the inspiration for the work.

Dinsdale, D.M. (2023). “Pakanga – The Heat of Battle: Dudley.” He Korowai Mahana: to be cloaked in the comfort of whakapapa. [re-purposed woollen blankets, embroidery, wool, assorted artifacts]. Tauranga , New Zealand. Photography Anne Shirley – Fuse Media

The words embroidered on the sleeve of the man’s jacket were selected from his letters. Printed silk fabrics used both on the inside and outside of the garments hold images of family members and of the original letters. There are no embellishments or objects on these garments that do not have a direct family connection. Every detail has a weighted significance.

Sadly, this story is a universal one for families anywhere caught up in warfare. The richness of the archived material in this family has enabled Donna to create her works, which give a voice to these traumatic losses of loved ones on a uniquely intimate level. The visual conversation around societal sacrifice, personal costs and empowerment is deep and complex, allowing many fellow citizens to find a resonance in the works. It is through finding these common grounds that the strength of our sense of nationhood, as well as of our personal worth and value, can be nurtured.

More detail about the works can be found here. 

About viv davy

viv davy lives by the powerful Tasman Sea in Ōpunakē, Aotearoa New Zealand, where she has created a studio and gallery space for fibre and textile arts. The vision of the project is to strengthen the knowledge and awareness of fibre arts in Aotearoa New Zealand. There is a public exhibition space for solo or group shows, as well as an artist residency attached to the campus. Supporting and promoting local talent underpins the ‘from out of the blue studio gallery’ project. This dream was formed after returning home from living many years in Canada, and having enjoyed the rich and diverse wealth and appreciation of textiles and the fibre arts there. Visit fromoutofthebluestudiogallery.com

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