Metiria Turei
Hiwa
Opening
June 19
5PM
Runs to July 1
Metiria Turei, 'Hiwa Teko' pigment print, 215 x 655mm, 2020
Hiwa i te rangi is one of the stars in the Matariki cluster. She is a signifier of hope for the coming year, of people's dreams and wishes for their future. In this iteration of Hiwa, I have reimagined her in the traditional forms of the taniwha, the tekoteko and the waharoa and with her alien face, place her beyond the realm of earth and human and into the realm of space and the future.
"Hiwa", Metiria Turei
(Olga).
METIRIA TUREI’S current exhibition Hiwa centres on Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, the ninth and final star in the Matariki constellation. Hiwa assists people with their aspirations for the coming year, and in 2020, she, along with the other eight stars will rise and be visible from July 13-20.
Turei has manifested Hiwa in three forms: dawn, day and dusk across two different media: pigment print photography and large-scale textile installation. As dawn, Hiwa is Hiwa Pou, and the pou or post is represented by Hiwa’s elongated legs; as day, Hiwa is Hiwa Taniwha, and a yellowy-green, serpentine taniwha replaces her legs; as dusk, Hiwa is Hiwa Waharoa, and in this form her legs have become the waharoa or gateway. In the pigment prints, Hiwa is depicted in rich, saturated colours, but as 3m sculptural forms, Hiwa is apprehended in terms of scale, presence, and movement. She is at once monumental and diaphanous: the chiffon responding to air currents and touch.
Hiwa is not only a cosmological harbinger of Matariki, she, and this exhibition give voice to an aesthetic and political movement known as Indigenous Futurism, in which Te Ao Maori is the centre, and has agency. Drawing inspiration from African American Futurism, Indigenous Futurism is related to the politics and processes of decolonisation, but envisages a world in which indigenous peoples (in this instance Maori) can imagine their own future with self-determination.
- Robyn Maree Pickens, Otago Daily Times, June 25 2020
(Olga).
METIRIA TUREI’S current exhibition Hiwa centres on Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, the ninth and final star in the Matariki constellation. Hiwa assists people with their aspirations for the coming year, and in 2020, she, along with the other eight stars will rise and be visible from July 13-20.
Turei has manifested Hiwa in three forms: dawn, day and dusk across two different media: pigment print photography and large-scale textile installation. As dawn, Hiwa is Hiwa Pou, and the pou or post is represented by Hiwa’s elongated legs; as day, Hiwa is Hiwa Taniwha, and a yellowy-green, serpentine taniwha replaces her legs; as dusk, Hiwa is Hiwa Waharoa, and in this form her legs have become the waharoa or gateway. In the pigment prints, Hiwa is depicted in rich, saturated colours, but as 3m sculptural forms, Hiwa is apprehended in terms of scale, presence, and movement. She is at once monumental and diaphanous: the chiffon responding to air currents and touch.
Hiwa is not only a cosmological harbinger of Matariki, she, and this exhibition give voice to an aesthetic and political movement known as Indigenous Futurism, in which Te Ao Maori is the centre, and has agency. Drawing inspiration from African American Futurism, Indigenous Futurism is related to the politics and processes of decolonisation, but envisages a world in which indigenous peoples (in this instance Maori) can imagine their own future with self-determination.
- Robyn Maree Pickens, Otago Daily Times, June 25 2020
Opening Night
