A documentary feature film preview of Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Chelsea Winstanley.
'Honouring the Toi Tū Toi Ora exhibition was the perfect place to test out the capabilities of the iPhone 12 Pro Max especially given the way curator Nigel Borell chose to open the show, within the Māori creation narrative.
That narrative begins in Te Kore - the empty faceless void, where time is suspended in unrealised potential; what I love about unrealised potential is that everything is possible.
For me, inspiration for unrealised potential is what I believe new technology like the iPhone provides.
I was incredibly impressed with what the iPhone 12 Pro Max offered, given the Gallery spaces I chose to film in were low light. I wanted to make sure the texture in the works came through and the three different focal lengths offered that opportunity.
I will always champion women being in control of their own narrative. The intimacy, flexibility and scope of an iPhone allows me to do just that, picking it up at any moment and seamlessly transferring it to an editing system.
When expectations around technology can be a barrier to storytelling, here is an example of being able to tell your own story in an accessible way, without diminishing the quality of the end result.
For this piece I chose to collaborate with artists who also have works in the exhibition - Maree Sheehan composed the music and Taika Waititi provided the narration. I did that deliberately because the entire show is vast, it is the first time the gallery has ever put on a show this size and it happens to be a Māori exhibition; something that is incredibly exciting to me.
Taika and Maree’s works sit alongside over 100 other artists, so I hope this teaser will entice people to come and explore all of it.
#shotoniphone12promax
I am currently making a documentary feature film on the exhibition.'
