Southland Museum & Art Gallery
We were approached to create an artwork for an upcoming exhibition, a collaboration between Southland Museum and Art Gallery and Invercargill City Council. This interesting engagement involved navigating around certain taonga within the exhibition display and depicting the elemental power of Foveaux Strait. We were provided with dimensions and images for each of the two taonga. Through various proposals and collaboration with the curator of the exhibition, we were able to confirm the following image for digital print all the way from Christchurch. This artwork became a central element of the exhibition, provided as digital files to the client for merchandise and other potential uses.
“I was inspired by your and Riki’s work ‘Tūhara’. The Southland Museum & Art Gallery (read the Invercargill City Council via SMAG) would like to commission you to depict the Te Ara-a-Kiwa narrative, on a 8m long wall inside Invercargill’s new interim Museum and Art Space. The Space is a joint venture between SMAG and the Invercargill Public Art Gallery after our two buildings were closed due to earthquake risk.” - David Luoni
KO KEWA TĒNEI.
A depiction of the Te Ara-a-Kiwa narrative, a foundation narrative for the area known widely as the Fouveaux Strait. The artwork focuses on the introduction of Kewa, as the central element, with consideration for the location of two taonga niho, tohorā teeth. One a Māori representation, the other Pākehā, a comparison of the Māori and Pākehā naming of the Strait, as two ways of seeing the same landscape.The artwork also considers different aspects of the narrative and has many symbolic representations.
