In a distant corner of Waiohiki Arts Village, past pottery and the communal courtyard, a cottage and shed flank a secluded plot of well-turned earth, shaded by an ancient and abundant plum tree. The shed’s only visible window is daubed with an unmistakably vulvic form, rough rendered as though by a muddy hand. Inside this dim-lit womb-like space a musk of earth and beeswax and the tiniest tinge of death linger.
Here, in the heartland of Ngāti Pārau, Kezia Whakamoe (Ngāi Tūhoe) births her works.
Whakamoe’s practice is intense and intentional, her process instinctive and ritual, in collaboration with the elements, the whenua and her personal atua, in communion with Papatūānuku and Ranginui. Raw and authentic, her subject matter is her own growth, the finished product an archive of her deep inner work. “My creation stems from going through transformation within myself. I have to be brutally honest. It always starts with wairua. It starts generations back,” reflects Whakamoe.
Quiet time spent in wild places allows her “space for conversation to happen within.” The surface noise of the world shut out, she searches for signs, observes birds – kōtare are often kaitiaki – and communes with atua. “Is this about a death process? A rising process? Honouring the new day? Honouring our kuia and her knowledge? It’s about what atua can I align with, what can I learn about. It’s always a learning process,” she explains.
On these exploratory missions she gathers whenua, raw materials for her work. Her studio is thick with taonga from forest and shore. Some are crafted into sculptural forms, an impressive rākau fashioned from petrified bark and bird wing. Others await grinding and mixing to create pigmentation with which she paints.
A canvas stretched across a long table is weighed at the corners with skulls. Recently retrieved from the river, its markings have been changed by the flowing water. Soon, when moon and stars reach optimum alignment, it will be buried in the grave-like plot outside her door, committed to the bosom of Papatūānuku, into the hands of Hine-nui-te-pō. “I bury them because that’s one thing we have in common, we’re all going to die. Hine-nui-te-pō levels it for us. We’re all the same when we come to her, we’re dead. Then she shows you the next place, how to move your energy as it leaves the body.”
The story of Hine-nui-te-pō resonates for Whakamoe on many levels. From her origins as guardian of dawn and dusk, she turned her back on the living to take dominion of the underworld. Māui violated her in a bid to attain immortality, but was crushed to death between her vaginal teeth creating the first menstruation.
Whakamoe is no stranger to men in power feeling entitled to women’s bodies as well as their unpaid labour, physical, emotional and spiritual. Her exhibition, Aukati – a complex word meaning both boundary and discrimination – documented her process of regaining sovereignty after sexual assault. In doing so, she calls out a culture where violation thrives and survivors are unsupported.
It’s a decolonisation process, focusing on reclaiming power rather than projecting shame and blame. “I’m not into cancel culture. Is the point healing or to cause more harm? It’s so easy to continue the anger and rage but I need to engage in my own transformation, my own sense of mana, my own sense of sovereignty, of mana motuhake, in my life. If I’m busy giving energy to those who harmed me that’s outside the kaupapa…I’m reconnecting with my whakapapa through the mahi. I’m actively allowing grief to move as part of my reconnection to myself. Never mind you, rape culture. I have no time for you. Aukati was about creating my boundaries.”
While her canvases germinate under the earth, so does Whakamoe dig her own depths, “to really dredge what’s going on in my heart and be able to share.” Sketches, maps and spells bedeck her workspace, articulating her metamorphosis. When shifts in her person and the cosmos align, her work is unearthed amidst feasting and song. “We’ll say the karakia, and raise them up, like birthing a baby. Then hang them out to dry and go through more and more processes until they’re done. I stitch them back together if they’ve got holes in them, rub them with homemade balm. It’s really like I’m doing that to myself, to anyone I can’t reach physically. Humans are hard to work with but it’s easy to work with this.”
Presenting her work to the world is a challenge Whakamoe consciously navigates, particularly when negotiating white-dominated artistic spaces. She cradles her work in dynamic installation, commanding gallery spaces to create full sensory experiences. Deliberately decolonising, she uses the tools of her whakapapa and spells of intention to draw us in to see, smell and feel facets of her experience through the lens of te ao Māori.
Reconnecting with her Tūhoe roots and casting her net wide to engage with others walking this path contribute to her continued process. She’s collaborated with collectives all over the country, creating wānanga and kōrero to actively dismantle an unjust system. “The purpose is to whakamana us as Māori, particularly our non-male, genderfluid, takatāpui, ones who are constantly oppressed and traumatised just by leaving the house.”
Her upcoming exhibition at Ahuriri Contemporary, Hautaki, unites creatives from her latest group show, Hā, with elements of Autaki and new works, currently in the ground, channelling the catharsis of Matariki. It’s an exercise in group therapy, a gift that rolls and grows with each life it touches.
“How can I contribute to the raising and the healing of mana whenua and tangata whenua and of myself as well as everyone else?” ponders Whakamoe. “It was the collective that saved me. Isolation is the killer.”
For her, this mahi is more than a career, it is a vocation, a compulsion. “I’m born to tell these stories. This is what I need to do in my life because as I tell those personal stories other people connect.”
Photo: Florence Charvin