Whāia te iti kahurangi (Figure 2 from Tangata~Whenua series)

Waiotahe carved poles (pou) beneath the Milky Way, Ōpōtiki, Aotearoa New Zealand (37°59′30.0″S 177°14′08.8″E). Long-exposure landscape photograph capturing ancestral carvings against the night sky.

Whakatauākī: Kei te rangi, he tini te whetū, ngā pōtiki mai tawhiti ki tai, he kura ki uta — Like the many stars that adorn the night sky, so too are the wonders of the land and sea adorned by the people of Ōpōtiki.

Part of the Tangata~Whenua collaborative photopoetic project examining negotiated authorship and cross-cultural photographic practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. The project pairs long-exposure landscape photographs of Te Whakatōhea whenua with whakatauākī (ancestral proverbs) and audio purākau (narrative voice-overs in te reo Māori and English).

Cultural authority: Toiroa Williams (Te Whakatōhea).
Photograph: Marcos Mortensen Steagall.
Purākau and whakatauākī: Toiroa Arapeta Williams.

Keywords: Tangata~Whenua, Whāia te iti kahurangi, Te Whakatōhea, Māori photography, decolonial photography, photopoetry, Aotearoa New Zealand, Ōpōtiki, long-exposure photography, night photography, pou, carved poles, negotiated authorship, Kaupapa Māori