Source: Radio New Zealand
Whiria ko te iwi tuna Toiaa Taiao
A Taranaki exhibition is giving a voice to native species including tuna (eels), iinanga and kooaro (whitebait), and piharau (lamprey), revealing the rhythms of life beneath the surface of New Zealand’s freshwater streams and rivers.
Whiria ko te iwi tuna opens on 28 February at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.
A four-year collaboration by artist collective Toiaa Taiao – Tihikura Hohaia, Alex Monteith and Maree Sheehan immerse audiences in the world of Te Whanganui, a central Taranaki stream, through evocative underwater footage and delicately recorded soundscapes, inviting audiences to experience the waterway as a living, communicating presence.
The project aimed to bring attention to ongoing legislative failures that enabled the exploitation of waterways and undermine hapū authority in enacting kaitiakitanga.
“This project marks the first time the voices of tuna from Te Whanganui have been recorded and made audible as voices in their own right,” said Maree Sheehan, a composer and sound artist recognised by the Royal Society of New Zealand as Māori researcher of the year in 2024.
“By amplifying these submerged communications, Whiria ko te iwi tuna positions tuna not as passive indicators, but as active agents speaking for their own sovereignty.”
A newly published essay by Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki iwi, Te Ātiawa, Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika), supported and extended the exhibition.
The essay situated the work within “a whakapapa of care and protest” in Taranaki, honouring generations of hapū and community-led efforts to protect waters from industrial ruin, and affirming the inseparable relations between Taranaki’s waters and its people.
Also opening on 28 February is Pause, act, void, event, a dynamic exhibition of beloved and newly acquired works from the Govett-Brewster collection.
Anchored by a spectacular room-spanning work by Debra Bustin, last seen at the gallery in 1982, the exhibition also featured works by Billy Apple, D Harding, Ralph Hotere, Corita Kent, Tom Kreisler, Ziggy Lever & Lucy Meyle, Peter Peryer and Pauline Rhodes.
Both exhibitions were on until 19 July 2026.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
