Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Whenua
Featuring more than 100 of the country’s most important artists, this major book explores the role of whenua in our art history.
Peter Robinson: Charcoal Drawing
A roomful of industrial-scale beams folded into unexpected and compelling new forms.
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
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Artist Profile
Whakahikohiko
On stepping into Francine Spencer’s home, what I notice first are the small, glittering points of light, scattered around the room like tiny, flickering whetū. But these aren’t gifts from Rakinui – these starlike specks are made of copper, Fran’s choice of material for her work in the upcoming exhibition Whāia te Taniwha.
Commentary
Taniwha
Taniwha narratives invoked in small rooms on warm nights of a Hokianga summer, or in big rooms with dirt floors by a Te Reinga river. Hine Kōrako, Poutini, Ngārara Huarau, Whatipū, Ngake and Whātaitai, names repeated and tethered to history from the mouths of generations of sovereign peoples. We wanted more, my tiny cousins and I, we believed in daydreaming and night-flying, viscous trails and portals underground.
Article
The problem with your neck
First he sent me a photo of a rainbow dolphin, which made me laugh because it’s the exact opposite of my personality and he knew that. Then I found a GIF of Dick Van Dyke in double denim riding a dolphin, bouncing on it in automated joy and when I sent it back, it made him laugh. I love that dolphin he said. But maybe both of us are sharks.
Article
New Acquisition
Aratohu is an extraordinary new film by artist Lisa Reihana (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāi Tūteauru, Ngāi Tūpoto). A surrealist fable told over the course of a single evening, Aratohu explores destructive influences and the potential for healing. For lead character Wairangi, a fun night out turns into a journey of self-discovery, as reality and hallucination blur and overlap. Following an encounter with Stealer, a sinister figure representing risk and temptation, Wairangi meets Aratohu, an ancestral being offering an alternative pathway, underpinned by renewed strength in her Māori identity.
Artist Profile
He Kuru Pounamu
Jen Rendall (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe) has explored ancestral narratives and the entwinements of plant life, waterways and landscapes in her works for some time. As a member of Paemanu Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts, she has participated in significant exhibitions which honour Kāi Tahu relationships to whenua, including Tauraka Toi: A Landing Place at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2021. More recently, her work was included in Kia Ora Whaea – an exploration of Māori motherhood and Indigenous perspectives and experiences of maternity shown at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in Tāmaki Makarau, which also included work by fellow Kāi Tahu contemporaries Turumeke Harrington and Alix Ashworth.
Interview
What Taniwha Might Be Telling Us
Carl Mika (Tuhourangi, Ngāti Whanaunga) is a professor and head of school at Aotahi: Māori and Indigenous Studies, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury. His colleague Garrick Cooper (Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Ranginui) is an associate professor at Aotahi.
What follows is Kirsty Dunn’s attempt to kōrero with her esteemed colleagues about references to taniwha in their mahi. This is a truncated version of an hour-long conversation in which they delve into Te Pō and talk about (or perhaps around?) taniwha a while…
Commentary
As far as the hawk-eye can see
I doubt that any printer’s first book has proved more wholly apposite than Pathway To The Sea, printed by Alan Loney in 1975 at his newly founded Hawk Press. There is propriety in the contributors. The writer, Ian Wedde, achieved prominence as a poet and critic, as Loney has; the cover artist, Ralph Hotere, believed strongly in the crosspollination of art and literature, as Loney does. And there is propriety in the title, which poetically evokes Loney’s trajectory in Aotearoa New Zealand. Born in 1940 in Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt, he came to printing through poetry. In 1971, he typeset his first collection, The Bare Remembrance, at Trevor Reeves’s Caveman Press in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Hawk Press was set up at Te Onepoto Taylors Mistake and later travelled with Loney from Ōtautahi Christchurch to the Kāpiti Coast and Ōkiwi Eastbourne. After its closure in 1983, he established further presses in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. In 1998, he left Aotearoa, crossing Te Tai-o-Rehua Tasman Sea and alighting in Naarm Melbourne, where he settled permanently in 2001.
Commentary
Peter Robinson
Te kaiora āhuatanga ōkiko engari anō te hākirikiri katakata, ko ngā mahi konumohe papaangi – wahie – tahuna ki roto i tēnei whakaaturanga he mea karanga whakahoki ki ngā whakapāpātanga ki mua a Robinson ki ngā rawa tāwhaiwhai ngana pērā i te kōmama me te whītau. Engari kia whakaritea ki te tērā pea whakameremere hītōria o ētahi mahi tawhito ake, ko ēnei “tuhinga waro” he pukuhohe mōkinokino, ahakoa ka hē pea kia whakamāori i tēnei tū whakapū – whakatapeha hei pāraharaha tūturu.
Artist Profile
Rooted in the Land
This article was written prior to the passing of Fred Graham on 9 May 2025. The author, Te Uru Contemporary Gallery and Christchurch Art Gallery acknowledge this loss with deep sadness. Moe mai rā e te Rangatira.
In 2024 I was fortunate to work with senior Māori artist Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui) and his whānau to present Fred Graham: Toi Whakaata / Reflections at Te Uru Contemporary Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Reflecting on Graham’s career, the exhibition brings together works made over the course of almost fifty years between 1965 and 2013.