Abstract
Whiria ko te iwi tuna - Mana o Te Wai - Te Whanganui, 2026, Single channel video installation with stereo audio, 9:27
From the major newly commissioned project Whiria ko te iwi tuna by artist collective Toiaa Taiao: Tihikura Hohaia, Alex Monteith (Clans Mitchell, Monteith & Doherty), and Maree Sheehan (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Raukawa, Ngāti Tahu- Ngāti Whaoa, Clan Sheehan, Clan Marshall).
Through immersive visual and sonic storytelling, the project gives form to the underwater lifeworlds of Te Whanganui—a manga in the rohe of Ngaati Moeahu, which meets Te Moana-Taapokopoko-a-Taawhaki near the western-most point of Taranaki. Focussing on the ngutuawa—the last 100-meters of the manga before it meets the sea—this body of water experiences the cumulative impacts of more than a century and a half of settler-colonial land and water mismanagement.