MO RATOU MA, 2019

The title of this body of work, speaks to the blood ties woven between those before and after. I acknowledge the ancestors before me; and seek out the grounding for those after.

The Māori ceremonial practice of whenua ki te whenua, placenta burial sits as framework over this project. This ritual reinstates the ancestral line between those who are living, back to those who have passed, and forward again to those who are not yet born. This sacred ceremony buries all blood lines together inside of Papatuanuku, the land.

Kept within this space are the intimate investigations reclaiming internal stability amidst the pollution of external representations concerning the roles of a wahine, woman. Although shared through my singular voice and encountered in a singular enclosed space, this work is very much informed by the blood stories of a community of wahine. The investigations rested here, will be taken back to this community and continue on as songs sung in our marae, and books that archive our whakapapa, our genealogy.