Description:

He Kapua Whakapipi translates to cumulus clouds, while the word whakapipi means to pile upon another, stack or accumulate. In this project, He Kapua Whakapipi (accumulating clouds) represents being shrouded in a blanket of the cloudy and unknown; while He Kapua Whakapapa (layering clouds of descent) refer to the primordial parents of the Māori world, Ranginui and Papatūānuku. Through accumulation and layering, I begin to form connections to my whakapapa through the practice of plant-based papermaking, developing a sense of identity and relationship to my Ngāti Kuri whakapapa.

I was raised with a strong Pākehā perspective and like many young Māori, this meant that I have grown up with a disconnection and loss of knowledge around my whakapapa. For as long as I can remember, I have felt this lack of identity, as if part of myself was missing. Although I recognised my whakapapa Māori, I sat quietly, observing in a state of Kai te noho puku (withdrawn and not taking part). I was taught that the whenua provides for us, but I lacked a spiritual connection or worldview that many Indigenous Peoples possess. Because I lacked this worldview, I believed that whakapapa solely meant genealogical human lineage, but through this project I have come to understand that whakapapa is a living entity that we are bound to through connections to Atua, people, plant matter, traditions, and physical objects through a never-ending, complex, interwoven web.

Kapua (clouds) became an essential conceptual framework that aligned with my understanding of the spiritual connection between humans and natural materials. Through this project I have been able to build a community, not only of tūpuna, but a community of plant-matter and locations that are significant to myself, my iwi, and my papermaking practice. As indicated by my title, He Kapua Whakapipi, He Kapua Whakapapa, I feel and sense a similarity between kapua and whakapapa. They are both continuously gathering, growing, connecting, dissolving, and observing. In theory, clouds may seem connected, but they form a web of intersecting relationships of layers, accumulating on top of each other. I think of myself as being shrouded in clouds, covered in a blanket of the cloudy and unknown. Kapua are made up of tiny water particles but have this ungraspable quality to them. They could consume me, but I still wouldn’t be able to grasp them. For me, this shrouding of clouds can begin to be contextualised through paper kapua by taking the cloudy or unknown and making them tangible through the material practice of papermaking.

The parallel book publication has provided me with a method to consolidate and map information learnt throughout the journey that I had undertaken. As I began to learn more about my whakapapa, I soon realised that this project meant much more than being just about people and the book developed into a repository of archived knowledge. This includes; connections to people and places, forming a connection to the plant world, log books, papermaking processes, journal entries, and photographs.