Te Taniwha

Taniwha falls by Joyce Campbell

26 May 2012 - 19 August 2012

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOYCE CAMPBELL, KORERO BY RICHARD NIANIA

In conjunction with Ngati Kohatu and Ngati Hinehika hapu and Wairoa Museum.

Te Taniwha is an evolving collaboration between artist Joyce Campbell and historian Richard Niania from the Ruakituri Valley in Wairoa. The work draws on the knowledge of the Niania whanau and the whanau of the late Phillip Smith, whose korero inspired the project and to whose memory it is dedicated. It is also a tribute to Phillip’s great grandmother, Te Taniwha McRoberts, one of three kuia moko kauae whose portraits hang in the tara whanui (visitor’s side) of the whare tipuna, Tuarenga.

Joyce Campbell has produced a set of images of local landforms that have deep cultural significance to the tangata whenua of the Ruakituri and Hangaroa River catchments and which have been imbued with korero from the ancestral house, Tuarenga, situated at Te Reinga Falls.

Te Taniwha is drawn from multiple threads drawing on the mythology, history and ecology of Te Urewera, the Ruakituri Valley and Te Reinga Falls at the headwaters of the Wairoa River. Through photographs and text, the project traces the search for the two great serpentine species: the Taniwha and the tororauiri or longfin eel. The project also binds together the ancient and mythic past with the present via whakapapa of the Te Aitanga-a-Pourangahua Hapu of the upper Ruakituri Valley at Erepeti and the Ngai Kohatu/Ngati Hinehika people of the lower Ruakituri at Te Reinga Falls in the vicinity of Whakapunake maunga.

 Coming to HASTINGS CITY ART GALLERY 26 May 2012