Roimata Mangakāhia

Artistic interpretation of Roimata by Kat (@knifekat or @psychedelikats on tumblr)

## Details

### First Mentioned

(in abstract) Season 1, Cassette #6: for Oleta(by name) Season 1, Cassette #10: Horopito

## Voice

### First Heard

Season 2, Cassette #0: Karikari Contemporary (1969)

**Roimata** is the main narrator for season 2 of Within The Wires. She narrated a series of museum audio guides which featured the work of fellow artist and lover Claudia Atieno.

> *"The tide comes in and it goes out. You're either there when you need to be or you're not; time is impervious to critique."* **--Roimata in *Cassette #6: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1978)***
>
>

## Biography

### Early Life

Roimata was born in a small seaside town in Aotearoa. She was born at the very end of the Great Reckoning and was among the first generation of children to have their memories erased at 10 years old.

She was drawing and making art from a young age, with some of her earliest shown work estimated to be from when she was 16 years old. Although she was not the most well known artist, she was well acquainted with many other artists. She was close to Vanessa Nguyen, and stood by her despite her career being ruined by a false plagiarism allegation.

When she was in her 20s, Roimata went traveling around the world, as art had been beginning to flourish for the first time since the Great Reckoning. Around 1964, Roimata visited Providence in North America and traveled either to or from London via cargo ship. There were no records of her transit.

### Meeting Claudia

In 1969, Roimata opened the Karikari Comtemporary Gallery in Aotearoa. She was the only staff member at the time of the premiere, which featured several works of Claudia Atieno's on loan from the former collection of the late Aimée Layeni. She was invited to London to work on an exhibit on Atieno for the Tate Modern.

She brought several of her own pieces of work to London with her, hoping to get a showing at a gallery. She moved in to an apartment near Plymouth. In 1970, she began working on her exhibit for the Tate Modern art galley on Claudia Atieno's work for the Remembrance Wing. As part of this project, Roimata interviewed Atieno and then narrated the audio guide for the museum. Although this is referred to as their first meeting, Roimata also allegedly talked with her in 1969 about her work "Lamp" which was her favourite, although this is dubious.

They met for the initial interview at the Café Joyeaux. Roimata had idolised Atieno for a long time and was nervous about meeting her, and in a rush to make a good impression, aggravated Atieno into smashing a plate. The two met again on better terms, several times, and got to know each other well. Eventually, Claudia invited Roimata to finish the interview at her home. The house was situated on a small island just off the coast of Cornwall, and Roimata stayed there for "a while". In the audio guide, which was released in 1971, she expressed a feeling of potential belonging, and a desire to go back. Claudia's newest work as of the 1971 Tate Modern guide was "Woman in Bath" which depicted Roimata bathing in the Cornwall house.

Claudia also visited Roimata in her Plymouth apartment for the last time in 1970, at which point she found a chest full of Roimata's old artworks and stole the original "Kea with Rope" and several other sketches. Roimata passed time at the Cornwall house by going diving off the cliffs, sketching the waves, reading, and creating needlepoint art. She met Cassandra Reza through Claudia and the two became friends, staying in touch. Roimata once stayed at Cassandra's home in Nicosia, and saw in her studio that one of her paintings resembled a later piece of Claudia's.

The following references content that only appeared in the official transcripts available on Patreon and may not be canon. *Learn More*

In the early 70s, Roimata work was exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art in an exhibit called "Eyes in Palms".
According to Roimata, the cat in the second rendition of "Self-Portrait with Cat" was named Matryoshka. She was a haggard stray who appeared on the island one day, and none of them (Claudia, Roimata, or Pavel) could figure out how she had got there, as it was impossible for her to have swum from the mainland and the motorboat was too small for her to stow away on. She was named Matryoshka because when Pavel first found her, she was pregnant.

End of Patreon-exclsuive content.

### Claudia's Disappearance

She stayed with Claudia until 1972, although she did not formally move out of her own small apartment in Plymouth. At some point during her stay there, one of Claudia's other lovers, Pavel Zubov, was exposed as a cheater and kicked out. It seemed that Roimata had encouraged this action, or at the very least supported it. Later, Pavel returned to the house, immediately before Claudia went missing in October of 1972. However, Roimata did not seem to especially suspect his involvement, nor had she found his presence odd at the time. The same day he arrived, she was leaving to give a lecture at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Roimata continued to deny that Claudia was missing for some time. For the remainder of 1972 and 73, she was sure that Claudia would be returning and had simply taken a break from her life. By 1974, she was fumbling on her tenses but still held out hope that she would be coming back, imagining that if/when she did, they would likely argue about how much Roimata had told El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo about her work. In 1975, she admitted that Claudia might never return, although she refused to believe that she was dead, saying that she believed the works allegedly "found" by Zubov in the Cornwall House were actually new works that she had entrusted to him and asked him to show the world without returning her to the public eye.

In 1977 she admitted that in all honestly, she feared the worst, and in 1978, Claudia's body was found. Roimata said that although she had become accustomed to Claudia's absence, she really hadn't thought that she would turn up dead. She agreed to go ahead with the audio guide for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, but broke down crying during the recording. Roimata claimed that the last time she had seen her was the evening of March 31st, and that she had been behind the house in the garden while Roimata was diving off the cliffs. Guests were arriving for a party, although she only remembered a quiet dinner, and she struggled to recall where and why she had left the house. She expressed confusion over why Pavel had been at the house to report Claudia missing on April 16th, and then was suddenly sure that Claudia had actually disappeared in the autumn. In 1978, Roimata was interviewed by Hester, who was studying art at the time, and admired Roimata greatly. To Hester she had seemed closed off, especially where Claudia was concerned. It is unclear if the interview took place before or after her body was found.

When Roimata returned to audio guide narration in 1979, she was for the first time not narrating an audio guide for just Atieno's work, but also her own and Vanessa Nguyen's. Nguyen's piece, "Women Alone", was loaned from her own collection, submitted to the exhibit because she wished to point out the similarities to Atieno's "The Three Sisters", which was painted after Claudia attended Vanessa's private exhibit. Her own piece was a self-portrait, painted in her bedroom at the Cornwall house. Out of the window, she painted a figure standing on the cliffs, waiting to jump.

While working with the Ohara Museum in Japan, Roimata learned that Claudia's work "Lamp (oil on wood)", which she had believed to be destroyed, was in the exhibit, and flew to Japan specifically to see it with her own eyes. In the audio guide for the Museum, Roimata went dramatically off-script. In the transcript-exclusive extended version of the episode, she reveals that she sent ahead a lot of "garbage" she had written about Claudia and the Museum approved it all seemingly without checking it, leading her to believe that nobody would listen to what she submitted until the exhibit opened. She declared her love for Claudia, and shared details of her death, stating that she died from impact after falling off the cliffs in Cornwall. Parts of her hair and bone washed up on St. Agnes Island in 1978, and in 1980 part of her torso and some teeth were discovered. Roimata then strongly implied that she knew the Institute was real and the kind of things that went on there.

In 1981, Roimata talked about, supposedly, the last time she had seen Claudia in 1972. The story was, again, different from the other times she had referred to it. She mentioned that at the time she left for Amsterdam, Claudia had been at the cliffs on the island. It was low tide, and after their goodbyes before she left, Claudia had said "I'm going to take the plunge." Roimata did not inform her that the tide was too low to safely jump from the cliffs, but in 1981 could not recall why or anything about her thoughts in that moment. She maintained that she did not know how Claudia died, seemingly in an effort to avoid jumping to conclusions.

### Later Life

In 1980, Roimata moved back to the town she was born in, and her work was exhibitioned there. By 1982, she had started painting again, although it is unclear when exactly she stopped. She painted shrubs such as the horopito on the mountains near her home - she painted dozens of these pieces, and scarcely worked on anything else. She died at some point before 1985, in the garden. She was not found for some time, as she was reclusive during these years. The paintings in her house were retrieved by Hester, who convinced a neighbour to let her in. Hester later reopened the Karikari Contemporary Gallery and showed Roimata's work there. On Hester's last visit to Roimata's house, she attempted to feed the cat, but it drew blood and ran away.

## Additional info

* The name "Roimata" means "teardrop" in Te Reo Māori
* "Mountain Horopito #4" is displayed above the mantelpiece in Hester and Oleta's cottage by the sea
* Many of the pieces that Hester chooses to show in the exhibition at the Karikari Contemporary Gallery are similar to or direct copies of works of Claudia's, which is ironic considering the way Roimata called attention to Atieno's plagiarism in previous audio guides
* Throughout the years Claudia was missing, the process of grief can be seen. First there is Roimata's denial of anything amiss, and then her anger at Atieno begins to manifest. Roimata calls her out on her shortcomings and seems to resent her at times. She starts to bargain with the concept of her return by suggesting that even if she herself never reappears, she expects they will continue to discover "hidden" works via Zubov. Eventually, she seems to give up hope entirely, before acceptance is forced onto her when her body is found.
* The Ohara Museum guide was likely among the two audio guides Roimata recorded that were not distributed (according to Hester), along with the one for the Montreal Museum. This raises the question of which other tapes Hester learned about, as she mentions eleven in total, and is presumably not including either Karikari Contemporary tape.
* Bonus information from the official transcript (which may or may not be considered canon) reveals that Roimata's "Eyes in Palms" exhibit was reviewed in the New Manhattan Times and *Al-Ahram:*
	+ "mysterious, yet straightforward... Her work offers complicated knots to untangle for those who wish to find order, but gorgeously structured colors and textures for those who want to appreciate fine art on its surface."
	+ "a master of landscapes."

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Season 1, Cassette #6: for Oleta
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Season 2, Cassette #10: Karikari Contemporary Gallery (1986)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Season 2, Cassette #1: Tate Modern (1971)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Season 2, Cassette #7: Sree Chitra Art Gallery (1979)
5. ↑ Season 2, Cassette #0: Karikari Contemporary (1969)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Season 2, Cassette #4: Bardo Museum (1975)
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Season 2, Cassette #8: Ohara Museum of Art (1980)
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Season 2, Cassette #5: Van Gogh Museum (1977)
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Season 2, Episode #3: El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (1974)
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Season 2, Cassette #2: Ulster Museum (1973)/Transcript
11. ↑ Season 2, Cassette #2: Ulster Museum (1973)
12. ↑ Season 2, Cassette #6: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1978)
13. ↑ Season 2, Cassette #9: Metropolitan Muesum of Art (1981)
14. ↑ Season 1, Cassette #10: Horopito