Ko tēnei whakaaturanga e tūhura ana i ngā āhuatanga rerekē o ngā ringatoi o Aotearoa ki te whakaatu i ō rātou hononga ki te whenua – ki ngā wāhi e noho nei tātou.

This exhibition explores the different ways that artists in Aotearoa have expressed their relationship to the land – to the places we live in.

Ki tā te Māori, ko te whenua me te whakapapa tōna hononga tāngaengae e mauroa ai te aronga matemate-ā-one i te takanga o te wā. Ko tā te Pākehā mahi he pōhewa mai i ngā whenua me ngā tohu rerekē e whakatakotohia ana e te ringatoi.

Kei tēnei whakaaturanga kitea ai te whenua hei whakaeminga, ‘he totoro whenua kua paparua ki te mahara, te tūmanako, me te whakaaro’ – arā, te hononga whenua me te hiahia whenua.

For Māori, whenua is a concept that connects land to whakapapa ancestral tiesMāori, providing a sense of belonging through time. The Western tradition of landscape painting offers an aesthetic response – views of the land represented and reimagined by artists.

Discover land as an accumulation, ‘a stretch of earth overlaid with memory, expectation, and thought’ – land as connection and desire.

Kī horipū (quote): kaituhi (author) Scott Russell Sanders, 1998