Sorawit Songsataya, Research image, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
Considering journeys and states of transition across multiple timescales, sites and species, Fibrous Soul presents major new and recent works by Aotearoa-based artist Sorawit Songsataya, alongside a new installation by Maata Wharehoka.
Interwoven into the exhibition, newly conceived works extend the artist's enquiries, drawing upon materials sourced from and relationships developed within the places Songsataya has inhabited—Taranaki andesite, Ōamaru stone, rattan sourced from a grower near Chiang Rai, where the artist’s mother lives, and sedge mats woven by women from the artist’s grandmother’s village in Thailand. In chorus, these works pose questions of mobility and shifting relations to place, the mutually dependent responsibilities of guest and host, the role of sound and music in measuring duration, as well as the many narratives people have arrived at to make sense of beyond-human forces.
In conversation with Songsataya’s work will be a new installation by Parihaka-based artist and kaitiaki of Te Niho o Te Atiawa Parahuka marae Maata Wharehoka (Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Kuia), who has been instrumental in the regeneration of kahu whakatere—tikanga Māori death and burial practices. Utilising harakeke and muka taura (rope) braided by the artist and her whānau, Wharehoka’s contribution speaks to ongoing efforts to normalise and revitalise cultural practice, acting as an affirmation of sovereignty.
Working together to consider both the physical world we inhabit, and possibilities beyond it, Fibrous Soul attempts to make porous boundaries between states of proximity and distance, vibrancy and inertia, life and non-life.
Considering journeys and states of transition across multiple timescales, sites and species, Fibrous Soul presents major new and recent works by Aotearoa-based artist Sorawit Songsataya, alongside a new installation by Maata Wharehoka.
Interwoven into the exhibition, newly conceived works extend the artist's enquiries, drawing upon materials sourced from and relationships developed within the places Songsataya has inhabited—Taranaki andesite, Ōamaru stone, rattan sourced from a grower near Chiang Rai, where the artist’s mother lives, and sedge mats woven by women from the artist’s grandmother’s village in Thailand. In chorus, these works pose questions of mobility and shifting relations to place, the mutually dependent responsibilities of guest and host, the role of sound and music in measuring duration, as well as the many narratives people have arrived at to make sense of beyond-human forces.
In conversation with Songsataya’s work will be a new installation by Parihaka-based artist and kaitiaki of Te Niho o Te Atiawa Parahuka marae Maata Wharehoka (Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Kuia), who has been instrumental in the regeneration of kahu whakatere—tikanga Māori death and burial practices. Utilising harakeke and muka taura (rope) braided by the artist and her whānau, Wharehoka’s contribution speaks to ongoing efforts to normalise and revitalise cultural practice, acting as an affirmation of sovereignty.
Working together to consider both the physical world we inhabit, and possibilities beyond it, Fibrous Soul attempts to make porous boundaries between states of proximity and distance, vibrancy and inertia, life and non-life.
