I Land

Holly Porteous Walker

12.03.26 — 4.04.26

Have I become (by design) so colonised I can no longer recognise all that I am in between? The land and the sky. Ancestors and descendants. Oceans. Bodies bodies bodies

The land, the soil, the fresh water, the oxygen, the cosmological alchemy of this earth that bore our bodies into existence; I am Land. A seed carried in the belly of a tui bird and planted on to the concrete footpath - washed out to sea. A sea shell, once a home, washed ashore and slipped onto a child's finger, in sacred union with Tangaroa. The earth and us are inextricably enmeshed. We are in love with earth.

As the tides rise will they push our broken pieces closer together? Can our broken pieces become soft enough so that we don't cause more damage with our hardened edges?

I Land visualises both the multiplicity within oneness and critiques the stupidity of individualism, privatisiation and isolation - environmentally, socially and culturally. The exhibition is an offering toward the decolonial aspirations of those of us who know that to survive these apocalyptic times we must act relationally; we must "island as a verb"- Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa. I Land is motivated by the community, identity and grounded in cosmological learnings.

Toitū He Whakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, Toitū Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Toitū Te Whenua!

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Holly Walker resides in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, under the manaakitanga of Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Toa and Taranaki Whānui. She is Pākehā and identifies with the term Tangata Tiriti. Holly is a descendant of Scottish, English, Irish, German, Polish and Pākehā ancestors, many of whom rest in the whenua of Aotearoa. Walker has a Masters of Fine Arts from Toi Rauwhārangi.

Poster design by Harris Wilson

Current Exhibition