Hine Ōkoro

Kei konei tētahi raupapatanga whakaahua e whakanui ana i a Hine-te-iwaiwa te kaitiaki o te whakawhānau tamariki, te whatu, ngā huringa o te marama; ko te tikanga he puakitanga mō te pou, te whakaahua tawhito o ngā tūpuna e kitea tonutia ana i roto i ngā wharenui. Ko Natasha Keating te ringa toi o ēnei whakaahua kiritanga porotaka e whakanikohia ai e te kaiwhatu a Bethany Matai Edmunds; he raupapatanga o ngā whakawhitinga me ngā mata o Te Marama. I konei kei te tāpareparehia ā-kīnakinaki a Hine-te-iwaiwa e ngā āhua o te kape me te rākaunui, ka mutu kei te āmiomio haere i ngā whakaahua ngā nikotanga i whatuhia ki ngā whītau o te wā. Kei te whakanui tēnei raupapatanga whakakōrekoreko, rangitahi hoki, i te whakapapa o te iwi, o Papatūānuku, o ngā rangi tūhāhā, ka mutu kua honotia katoatia e te mana wahine o Hine-te-iwaiwa, nōna te wairua e rangona ai i te pari me te timu o te tai, i te huringa o te kaupeka, i te urunga me te wehenga o tēnei ao.

Hine-te-iwaiwa, the spiritual guardian of childbirth, weaving and the cycles of the moon, is honoured here in a series of portraits intended as contemporary interpretations of pou, the totemic portraits of ancestors seen in wharenui (meeting houses). Painted by Natasha Te Arahori Keating and flanked by fibre adornments made by weaver Bethany Matai Edmunds, the circular portraits are read in a series of transitions recalling the varying phases (and faces) of Te Marama, the moon. In this work Hine-te-iwaiwa is interchangeably framed by crescent and orb shapes with woven adornments, made from season-specific fibres, orbiting the portraits in varying constellations. Radiant and ephemeral, the series celebrates the whakapapa (genealogy) of people, earth and the celestial realms, all interconnected by the mana wahine (female power and authority) of Hine-te-iwaiwa, whose spirit is felt through the pushing and pulling of tides, the incremental change of seasons, and when we enter and leave this world.

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