New Exhibition Opening At Te Kōngahu Museum Of Waitangi

A new exhibition Ngā Hau Ngakau is opening at Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi , located at Waitangi Treaty Grounds on Saturday 11 December. Paintings, intricately carved taonga puoro and music are woven together to form Ngā Hau Ngākau (Breath of Mine).

A collaborative installation between painter Robin Slow, master-carver Brian Flintoff and musician Bob Bickerton, the exhibition presents 36 paintings, 34 carvings and sound to explore narratives of Te Ao Māori through evocative imagery and other-worldly soundscapes. Ideas born of harmony, memory and storytelling are supported through waiata sung by Ariana Tikao and Holly Weir-Tikao, with accompaniment on taonga puoro (traditional musical instruments) by Solomon Rahui and Bob Bickerton. A video produced by Bob Bickerton, to which the soundscape is played, explores in further detail the stories behind the imagery.

Waitangi Treaty Grounds Curatorial Manager Caitlin Timmer-Arends is excited by the new exhibition. “It is fantastic for Waitangi and Northland to be able to showcase an installation of this calibre. Ngā Hau Ngākau was initially planned to open last summer but that was delayed due to COVID-19.”

The exhibition evokes the form of the Whare Whakairo (carved meeting house) dedicated to manu (birds), treasured in Māori mythology as messengers that connect the physical and spiritual realms. The paintings, carvings and sounds weave together to bind the past to the present and then to the future, to bind the physical to the spiritual.

Ngā Hau Ngākau closes on 13 February 2022.

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