Pacific Arts: The Journal of the Pacific Arts Association

This photo essay is based on the artist’s doctoral research and exhibition Tātara e Maru Ana—The Sacred Rain Cape of Waiapu. The PhD thesis interrogated the history of photography in Ngāti Porou to show how lens-based image-making can enact Mātauranga Waiapu: cultural knowledge systems specific to this place and oriented to the restoration of the Waiapu River and the wider taiao or environment. The creative works in the project critically adopt the strategies of landscape photography to activate transformative relationships among iwi and hapū in recognition of the degradation of Te Riu o Waiapu by settler colonial practices of deforestation.