The land as shaman ∧ new media

Toitū he kāinga, whatungarongaro he tangata
The land remains, long after people have passed on

A native of Aotearoa (known as New Zealand in English) is a 'tangata whenua'; a person with whose umbilical chord is symbollically connected to the land. In the Maori world the natural world is personified, is our mother, brother, sister and this sense of being in nature is strong even though most New Zealanders live in cities. It is this Maori connectedness to the land that I missed most on moving to the Netherlands in 1989.

In 2008 I was invited to make a new work for an exhibition in The Hague, The Netherlands, entitled "The Unwanted Land."
Initially I was confused because for me a land cannot be unwanted, just as a mother cannot be unwanted. You cannot undo the umbilical chord. Then I was invited to participate in a 6 day waka (a double-hulled canoe) journey along a river sacred to the Whanganui tribes, and coordinated by Julian Priest, a new media artist and activist, with local Māori.

Until I find time to put the text here you can download the pdf in English (1.8mb) or read this in Spanish/Español