Te Hā
27 January - 03 March 2023
Megan Brady, Kiringāua Cassidy, D Harding, Ruby Mae Hinepunui Solly, Areta Wilkinson
curated by Taniora Tamati-Rakete (Te Ātiawa, Kāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi)
The Physics Room
Ōtautahi, Christchurch
Aotearoa, NZ
For more information click here
She looks down to find my eyes, 2023. Rimu, found sea glass, beeswax. Installation view (detail).
She looks down to find my eyes, 2023. Rimu, found sea glass, thread pulled linen, beeswax. Installation view.
She looks down to find my eyes, 2023. Thread pulled linen. Installation view (detail).
She looks down to find my eyes, 2023. Rimu, found sea glass, thread pulled linen, beeswax. Installation view (detail).
She looks down to find my eyes
The invitation into this kaupapa about te hā has allowed me to delve into whakaaro about the big and small patterns that occur within us, and around us.
The big pattern is our tides; the oceans breath. The tide leaves, a prolonged inhale. The tide returns, filling every little crack and cove, a settling exhale. This is a pattern I have known my whole life, but only in recent years have I began to understand it in such closeness to my own breath. Perhaps this is due to living close to the water again, the first time since I left home.
Living close to the water again brings back old habits. As a child I learnt that time doesn’t exist when you walk along a shoreline with your head down and your eyes, looking, scanning, looking.
I learnt this from my mum. From watching her, and following close behind.
What my mum was looking for, was blue glass.
At first I thought she collected blue glass because it was the same colour as our eyes. But now I know it helped her to breathe.
Being led by our eyes, we fall into a rhythm. Moments like these are when we breathe the best. Deep and clear. And the act of looking is the taonga, because it is looking without expectation but maybe a little hope.
Looking, scanning, breathing, moving, looking, scanning, gasp.
That little shimmer of blue takes her breath away, and by inheritance, takes mine away too.
This is the small pattern. The rhythm of breath of my mum and I when walking along the shoreline together, looking for blue glass.
This is where my response to te hā is centred, where the big pattern meets the small pattern. Where the extended tidal breath delivers blue glass to my mum. This work presents the many moments her breath was joyfully taken away. Holding pieces of blue glass that simultaneously interrupted my mums breathing, and validated it too.
Native timber skirting follows around a portion of the gallery space embracing numerous pieces of blue glass from mum’s collection; tracing the shape of her breath recorded when walking along the shoreline together. Resting upon the ground and wrapping around the walls, the skirting invites the viewer to lower their gaze as if looking, scanning, moving along the shoreline too.
Above our eye line, infront of the window frames hangs the same visual documentation but of my breath. The shape is more condensed, sharper. I haven’t had as many years as mum to smooth out this practice.
Hanging from this second rimu structure falls slightly salty linen with removed warp threads. Before letting in some light, I took the linen to a quiet bay within Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū/Banks Peninsula to swim with the fabric - allowing it to move freely with the push and pull of the tide. The threads are removed where our breath overlaps, and a new pattern is found.
She looks down to find my eyes contemplates an intimate practice between mother and child. Where lessons of observation and self-care continue to simmer, as our breath syncs up with the tides.
She looks down to find my eyes, 2023. Thread pulled linen. Installation view (detail).
All images by Nancy Zhou
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