Nikau Hindin: Tai Timu, Tai Pari

Nikau Hindin (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa) is a cloth maker, kiriaute, who has been deeply engaged in the renewal of Māori aute (bark cloth). Her practice, grounded by wānanga, is devoted to sharing our cosmologies within and beyond aute.

Tai Timu Tai Pari presents over a decade of practice, research and refinement in the intensive and iterative process of aute making. It follows not only the phases of transformation of the fibre, weu, but of the kiriaute themselves, and the processes that emerge out of a deep commitment to past and future generations.

To balance generations in this way is to command a process that is both known, and emerging anew each time.

Nikau looks to Hina, and her command of the tides, for guidance. Immersed in the currents of whakapapa time, she draws water into and out of the fibres, making them soft and pliable, ngohe, collapsing the distance between generations and opening into wānanga. From the scraping, waku, the beating, pao, to the stretching, rena, of the inner bark, she impresses herself onto the cloth, and is impressed upon in turn. Returning together, to the water, again and again.

As the tides retreat, the kiriaute casts her eye upon these new landscapes. Each inhale and exhale impressed like waves onto the sand. Each kahu aute, a wānanga captured. A remembering. A telling, and retelling of our stories of creation.

In this gathering of relations - tūākana, teina, whānau - space opens up, wide and discerning, for these processes to take root on the shores of Te Tai Tokerau, where stories of Nikau’s own tūpuna are already embedded. Tai Timu Tai Pari continues to emerge, inviting the audience to return, as Nikau and her relations carry out this Summer’s harvest, adorning the ahurewa with freshly beaten aute. An altar to honour these enduring human and non-human relationships and an offering of mātauranga aute to build the foundation for Te Whare Aute ki Te Tai Tokerau.

Nikau’s work has been exhibited widely, recently included in Fondation Cartier’s collection presentation, ‘Exposition Générale’ at their new gallery Fondation Cartier Pour l’art contemporain, Paris. ‘Djamu Aute’, a 12 month intensive aute wānanga at Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre, was co-facilitated by Wesley Shaw, Atarangi Anderson and Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes and the Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous public programs team. The toi aute made by Nikau and the youth are currently part of ‘High Colour’ at the Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Between 2023-2024 Hindin lead two major projects for ‘Ten Thousand Suns’ 24th Biennale of Sydney, including Badu Gili: Celestial, featuring Hindin’s toi aute animated and projected onto the Sydney Opera House with soundscape by Te Kahureremoa Tiopira Taumata and Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes. The 35th Bienal De São Paulo commissioned Ngā Whetū Maiangi, an ensemble of 13 star maps and the aute quilt presented here, for ‘Choreographies Of The Impossible’, 2023. Commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Nikau made 100 manu aute for their inaugural exhibition O Quilombismo, Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies. Other noteworthy presentations include the Kathmandu Triennale (2022), Aichi Triennale (2022) and works included in major institutions; Winnipeg Art Gallery–Qaumajuq, Winnipeg, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, and Para Site, Hong Kong. In Aotearoa, Nikau has presented solo exhibitions at The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland and here at the Wairau Māori Art Gallery, Whangarei.