Photo / Supplied
Artist Shona Tawhiao (Ngāi Te Rangi, Whakatōhea, Te Whānau-ā-Āpanui) has launched a set of eight giant woven sculptures, inspired by her Nanny Nunu, at her marae in Tauranga Moana on Saturday.
The sculptures, entitled Pākākano, with some well over two metres high, have been a year in the making and were launched at Opureora Marae on Matakana Island this morning.
Each of the seed pod sculptures celebrates the creativity and skills of Tawhiao's great-great grandmother, the late Marara Maihi, known to her whānau as Nanny Nunu.
Despite her Nanny passing when the artist was a child, Tawhiao says she sees her very much as a collaborator in her new work.
“Just as a seed pod is perfectly designed in nature to hold the precious cargo of DNA, incorporating Nanny’s designs into my weaving takes the past to the future, in the present,” Tawhiao said in a statement earlier this week.
Key to the project’s success has been the ongoing kōrero Tawhiao is having with local whānau who recall Nanny Nunu.
Tawhiao's driving ambition in all of her work is, she says, the reinvigoration of the process and philosophy of weaving.
These beautifully crafted pieces demonstrate a commitment which Tawhiao says she hopes her nanny would be proud of.
