Description:

For Māori, our relationship with significant landscapes are central to our connection with cultural knowledge, te taiao, and a sense of belonging. Landscapes hold whakapapa, memory, spiritual connection, and names reflecting the lives of our tūpuna, linking us to both past and future.

After leaving home, I became more aware of my disconnect from my cultural identity. Though raised on my whenua, a predominantly Western upbringing distanced me from my Māori heritage - an intergenerational effect shaped by colonisation and urbanisation in Aotearoa. Beginning my Indigenisation journey showed me reconnecting with te taiao is essential to honouring my whakapapa. My initial research on our disconnection from nature evolved into a deep, internal questioning of identity: Ko wai au? This project provided a meaningful way to explore ancestral layers embedded in the landscapes of my whakapapa.

This pukapuka is an evocative, illustrated journey through three South Canterbury and North Otago landscapes, exploring layers of time, formation, and history.

Kōhatu is a central motif, grounding my exploration of whakapapa—a key framework in te ao Māori encapsulating relationships with nature, people, place, and time. Kōhatu holds mana and mauri, used by our tūpuna to sustain daily life. Like rock layers formed over years, Whakapapa is intrinsic in the natural world, while landscapes are touchstones of our identity.

I explored landscape and stone formations, my relationship to tupuna, pūrākau, colours, textures, and personal connections. Mātauraka Māori is shared through visual, oral, and hands-on practices, often with poetic qualities. This guided my process of personal expression through writing and creating—embodied into an artefact with its own whakapapa.

While textual research was valuable, it was direct engagement with these landscapes—sitting with their wairua, collecting stones, kōrero with whānau—that truly deepened my understanding of where I come from.

Each site is linked to an environmental theme, grounding the project in te taiao, and forming the book’s three sections. To reflect my journey of reconnection and the physical essence of my whakapapa, I used traditional media and experimented with mark-making—including making paint from earth materials, as my tūpuna once did.

The reading experience reflects a Māori view of time shaped by whakapapa—layered and interconnected across past, present, and future. The non-linear structure interweaves present-tense poems, story and visuals, and personal reflections.

Hand-bound with harakeke paper, the journey begins and ends with te taiao. Exposed binding symbolises unfolding stories through layers, while tracing paper creates physical layers between text and image. A red thread, representing the blood and sinew of Rakinui and Papatūānuku, binds these elements—connecting all aspects of whakapapa.

This pukapuka reflects a step toward understanding my cultural identity and tūrakawaewae—my standing place. It serves as a touchstone of my learning, now a living connection to my whakapapa. Though a personal project, the book provides an intimate experience which, through its abstract nature, provokes readers to reflect or discover something for themselves. I see it resonating with those seeking to reconnect with their roots, inspiring reflections on their own significant places, whakapapa, and the rich taiao around them.