Waitirohia

This exhibition features a new series of engraved vintage mirrors that are a tribute to a moment—the very first time the artist saw her reflection after receiving her moko kauae. According to Russell, that moment in the mirror “changed everything.”[1] For so long she felt out of place in her own skin, but when she looked into that mirror, she saw someone she recognised but had never met. She saw her tūpuna. She saw herself. In our country’s pre-colonial period, when wāhine mau moko kauae were the norm and not the exception and before tūpuna Māori had mirrors, they would often look into the wai through a river or lake to see their reflection. For wāhine mau moko, this would have been the only way to see themselves after receiving their kauae. This is a stark contrast to the way we live today, with high resolution cameras in our phones enabling us to see ourselves in an unnatural level of detail at any given moment. 

Tirohia, translating to ‘inspect’ or ‘gaze upon’, offers an entirely different way of looking—slower and more purposeful. To tirohia into the wai means to acknowledge “yourself as part of the waters you are gazing into, waters that are your tūpuna.”[2] Tūpuna Māori would, naturally, most often gaze into their own awa. It is this act of active inspection that interests Russell, who wonders how looking not only into the water, but your own water, impacts your wellbeing. The engravings on these mirrors, much like the engraving on Russell’s skin, represent tūpuna Māori. Inspired by an exhibition of pounamu in which many hei tiki were displayed alongside the label ‘iwi unknown’, each engraved hei tiki here is an ancestor. Russell honours them by seeing them and in turn, letting them see us. In this series of artworks, these unknown ancestors have a home. 

Presented alongside these mirrors is an older series of photographs Russell took at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. For this work, also titled Waitirohia (2019), Russell photographed He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni me Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The dim environment in which these documents are held required an extremely low aperture, resulting in a ripple effect across these images. The parchment seems to become a landscape itself, with ridges representing hills and grooves symbolising rivers. Atop this landscape are the signatures of the rangatira who are kaitiaki of the whenua. 

Continuing her interrogation into He Whakaputanga as well as the hei tiki form, Russell also presents her ongoing project 1835 (2024—). These polaroids feature images of hei tiki, held in a metal case stamped with the year He Whakaputanga was signed. Russell began this project in a state of frustration last year, when she saw “three privileged men who grew up in Aotearoa rapidly erase any progress we have made as a country over the last 189 years.” Frustration bred resistance, and soon the public were lining up to purchase these works. However, Russell does not want them to be solely displayed, but worn as adornments as well. She adds fixings to each work, so that they can be attached to bags or worn as necklaces, noting that “while the images displayed in these wearable pieces may slowly disappear, the facts in our history will remain,”[3] just as the 1835 stamp will. 

In an act of collaboration, we hosted a workshop on the day after this exhibition opened for those interested to create their own 1835 artwork from the polaroids placed on an aluminium shelf in the gallery. Attendees wore their 1835 adornments on Tuesday 28 October, the date that He Whakaputanga was signed 190 years ago. In their place lay the 1835 metal stamps used to imprint the date on the work.

 

1. Correspondence with the artist, 4 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Tessa Russell, https://toibytessa.com/1835-2/.
 

 

Curated by Brooke Pou