Finalist Bowness Photography Prize 2018, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill.

Finalist Bowness Photography Prize 2016, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill.

The photograph has long been used as a tool of colonisation. By contrast, this project aims to make digital photographic processes and the making, in itself, Indigenous. Here, the physical surface of the photograph is used as a site for making customary Māori art.

My vantage point is that of a Māori-Australian photographer and weaver. Māori weaving is a link and connection to my Māori heritage and ancestors.

For Māori, the most prestigious garment that can be woven is the kahu huruhuru (feather cloak). For this project, I have made a cloak using emu feathers in combination with customary Māori weaving techniques. This cloak has then been photographed, printed and re-woven to make a life-sized, threedimensional cloak, using Māori whatu/cloak weaving techniques.