THE WOMAN WHOSE BACK WAS A WHETSTONE, 2023

Exhibited in Te Hau Whakatonu, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, curated by Taarati Tairoa (group)

In these three sculptures based on akmon forms – the concrete blocks used at the breakwaters of port Taranaki – Ana Iti traces the whakapapa of her sculptural practice to Hinetūāhōanga, the atua wāhine or female deity who is described as ‘the woman who stands as a grindstone’ or ‘the women whose back was a whetstone’.

In Māori creation stories, Hinetūāhōanga provided the karakia to Rātā needed to successfully fell trees and her spine for the sharpening of his toki to enable him to shape waka (canoe). The blocks of Oamaru stone reference the story from Te Waipounamu (the South Island) of limestone being her remnant bones. Iti has worked on each block with ‘actions’ that can be associated with Hinetūāhōanga; sanding, cutting, and sharpening.

Hinetūāhōanga in her role as a knowledge-holder for the respectful harvesting and creative transformation of materials from the taiao (environment) allows the work to allude to frictions in the displacement and alienation of Māori from their land as a result of the colonial pursuit and exploitation of natural resources.

- Taarati Tairoa