A Red-Tipped Dawn - Pōhautea at Waiapu Ngutu Awa (7th August 2020)

Natalie Robertson is one of Aotearoa’s leading wahine Māori artists working in photography and moving image. A Red-Tipped Dawn — Pōhautea at Waiapu Ngutu Awa (7th August 2020), 2020 draws on the cultural narratives of Ngāti Porou tipuna, ancestors, handed down to her.

The central essence of A Red-Tipped Dawn — Pōhautea at Waiapu Ngutu Awa was drawn out by the artist reconfirming her commitment to te hau kāenga, those living ‘at home’ and people like herself who constantly renew ancestral connections. The vista can be seen from Robertson’s marae, Hinepare, at Omaewa, on the mouth of the Waiapu river, north of Tokomaru Bay.

Robertson identifies ‘the distinctive eastern Tairāwhiti language of light’, which illustrates the moment Porourangi was born, during a crimson, red-tipped dawn. It is from this ancestor (Porourangi) that Ngāti Porou inherit their name and such observance of light informs Robertson’s thinking about photography as she seeks to secure the visual memory of her whenua, ancestral lands, for her people.

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