E moko, come home

Video work 38mins

All of my work often circles around identity, feelings of disconnection, and our longing as Māori to return to our home. I just wanted to present a space to rest in, one you are almost immersed in a hug, you know those warm nanny hugs. Jordan at Wormhole made that happen.

I’ve been having/hearing/watching a lot of conversations in the last few years of Maōri trying to shine out through the gaps in our capitalistic concrete society calling to other Māori to come home and the potential that return could spark to transform the world for our mokopuna. It’s exciting and heavy at the same time, we are often told we are causing a divide when really we are just finding our voices we don’t always know how to communicate that, sometimes it’s just damn tiring having to try and communicate it, I communicate with images, images my people can relate to, they can feel what I’m trying to communicate and they feel heard or seen at the same time. 

I had a massive life change at the end of 2022, I became a solo mama. It’s been a ride. Somedays a ride I really don’t wanna be on, but more often now a ride for me back to myself, back home. I made it in the thick of it, with all the lumps in my throat, depression peeking in, no words to adequately express where I was or still am somedays, but just that I’m lost… and when shits really hard I just wanna feel that call home, where ever that needs to be at the time even if home is just me.

My art always has layers I don’t need to verbally talk about, its to Maori, It’s if ya know ya know “ki te mohio ka mohio”?