Sarah Hudson
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1986
Ngāti Awa,
Ngāi Tūhoe,
Ngāti Pūkeko,
Māori
Reconnect
- 2023
- HD video, sound, colour; duration 10 min
- Purchased 2023
- 2023/127.2
Tags: Māori (culture or style), monochrome, nudes (representations), rock, women (female humans)
E kore a Parawhenuamea e haere ki te kore a Rakahore ~ Freshwater does not go without rocks.
Sarah Hudson spent several years immersing herself in the practices of her tūpuna Māori, researching the way rocks, clay and soils have been used as a material for personal adornment, art-making, ceremony and medicine. In this work she explores the relationship between land, water and body through ritual. As she applies grey uku to her body, face and hair, water and earth come together to make rich new textures and colours. Clay objects, returned to the river, bear the marks of these rituals. The relationship between earth and water is established with whakapapa and communicated through te reo Māori, as evident in the above whakataukī.
Parawhenuamea ~ the personification of freshwater
Rakahore ~ the personification of rock
tūpuna Māori ~ Māori ancestors
uku ~ clay
whakapapa ~ genealogy, lineage
te reo Māori ~ the Māori language
whakataukī ~ proverb
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Exhibition History
This work by Sarah Hudson is a companion to Remember and is informed by the whakataukī ‘e kore a Parawhenuamea e haere ki te kore a Rakahore’. This whakataukī highlights the interconnectedness of water and rock – without rock, water does not flow. Hudson has spent several years researching the practices of her tūpuna Māori in the use of rocks, clay and soils mixed with water as a material for personal adornment, art making, ceremony and medicine. Here she explores the whakapapa of whenua, reconnecting with her body and the land through ritual.
Glossary: whakataukī: proverb tūpuna: ancestors whakapapa: genealogy, lineage whenua: land, ground, earth
Related
Commentary
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Our expansive new collection exhibition explores the fundamental role whenua plays in the visual language and identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Acknowledging Māori as takata whenua, the first peoples to call this land home, themes of kaitiakitaka, colonisation, environmentalism, land use, migration, identity and belonging are considered through collection works, new acquisitions and exciting commissions. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, moving image, printmaking and weaving by historical and contemporary artists are brought together to reveal how land has been a material and subject for art in Aotearoa for hundreds of years. Here, the Gallery’s curators each take a closer look at a key work from the exhibition that tells us something about our complex relationship with the whenua.