Arielle Walker, Whakaruruhau Puanga, 2024 (detail). Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
Sylvan Spring, Uisce, 2024 (process image). Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
Kahu Kutia, illustration from Black tea, lanolin, and hot red earth essay, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
Madison Kelly, TAUTIAKI HAPTIC, 2023 (detail). Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo Credit
In the Northern Scottish tradition of ‘waulking the cloth,’ women worked together to finish woven cloth as it came off the loom. They would sew it in a loop, soak it, and thump it rhythmically on a wooden table for several hours, singing folk songs over the beat to keep time. By the end of the process, the cloth would be thicker, more durable, and weather resistant. Waulking Song springs out of a shared curiosity in waulking and its rhyming, communal, interrelated processes.
Arielle Walker will make new work during the exhibition, experimenting with the sonic and relational aspects of textile-making and story-sharing. She will work on whakaruruhau (koanga), a double-sided loom made from driftwood and fallen branches, which allows two pieces to emerge in conversation with one another. Additional pieces will keep Arielle company as she works.
Sylvan Spring’s audio work Uisce plays on a loop, providing continuous accompaniment. We hear their baby blanket being waulked in Ōwhiro stream, whose waters have been tainted by colonisation. Sylvan sings an Irish song about land alienation, as the blanket is softened in the dirty water.
Kahu Kutia’s essay Black tea, lanolin, and hot red earth and whenua-stained tapestry Matariki Tuitui Tangata draw connections between the lyrical structure of waulking songs, the visual patterns in weaving, and the rhythms of intergenerational learning. Gossip is embedded in the weave.
Madison Kelly’s piece TAUTIAKI HAPTIC consists of textured bronze creatures and objects that can be played like instruments. Visitors are invited to use a variety of toko supplied by the artist to make rhythms as they move between the mokomoko, cymbals, and bell, adding a layer of improvised percussion to the gallery’s soundtrack. Harakeke brushes against metal.
This exhibition considers the patterns and rhythms that connect bodies and their kin to the material world. It brings together contemporary responses to folk practices with roots in Aotearoa, Ireland, and Scotland. What rhythms do we inherit? Where do echoes land? What does it mean to feel them in our own bodies?
Waulking Song is presented as part of Jordan Davey-Emms’ curatorial internship, soft shell, which occupies Te Tuhi’s Parnell Project Space until March 2025.
In the Northern Scottish tradition of ‘waulking the cloth,’ women worked together to finish woven cloth as it came off the loom. They would sew it in a loop, soak it, and thump it rhythmically on a wooden table for several hours, singing folk songs over the beat to keep time. By the end of the process, the cloth would be thicker, more durable, and weather resistant. Waulking Song springs out of a shared curiosity in waulking and its rhyming, communal, interrelated processes.
Arielle Walker will make new work during the exhibition, experimenting with the sonic and relational aspects of textile-making and story-sharing. She will work on whakaruruhau (koanga), a double-sided loom made from driftwood and fallen branches, which allows two pieces to emerge in conversation with one another. Additional pieces will keep Arielle company as she works.
Sylvan Spring’s audio work Uisce plays on a loop, providing continuous accompaniment. We hear their baby blanket being waulked in Ōwhiro stream, whose waters have been tainted by colonisation. Sylvan sings an Irish song about land alienation, as the blanket is softened in the dirty water.
Kahu Kutia’s essay Black tea, lanolin, and hot red earth and whenua-stained tapestry Matariki Tuitui Tangata draw connections between the lyrical structure of waulking songs, the visual patterns in weaving, and the rhythms of intergenerational learning. Gossip is embedded in the weave.
Madison Kelly’s piece TAUTIAKI HAPTIC consists of textured bronze creatures and objects that can be played like instruments. Visitors are invited to use a variety of toko supplied by the artist to make rhythms as they move between the mokomoko, cymbals, and bell, adding a layer of improvised percussion to the gallery’s soundtrack. Harakeke brushes against metal.
This exhibition considers the patterns and rhythms that connect bodies and their kin to the material world. It brings together contemporary responses to folk practices with roots in Aotearoa, Ireland, and Scotland. What rhythms do we inherit? Where do echoes land? What does it mean to feel them in our own bodies?
Waulking Song is presented as part of Jordan Davey-Emms’ curatorial internship, soft shell, which occupies Te Tuhi’s Parnell Project Space until March 2025.
