Pito to Pou: An Artist-Mother's Guide to Cutting the Cord

Abstract

Mother Practice, as I have termed it, lives in between the tensions of its foundations and supports. My Art Practice investigates the balance and imbalance of these vital constructs through a whakapapa lens, by using a vocabulary of gathered, gifted, inherited, made and made-for-this-moment archives within sculptural installation. Through a methodology of engaging with technologies and techniques at the margins of my experience, my Art Practice holds a mirror to Mother Practice, where growth and change in children compel mothers to repeatedly work at the edges of knowing.

So, if the fertile ground within which I dig down to make my foundation is the profane and sacred ground of Mother, then the resulting matrescence through which I’ve grown makes this foundation strong. If, in the levelling of my foundation, I discovered what was of vital importance, then this sculptural installation project is a distillation of those discoveries. If the weight that my foundation can bear is the fracture and mamae resulting from my birth, then may the load now be lessened for my daughters.