Today, I will speak of the dead and so I acknowledge nga mate, those who have gone before. This is dedicated to my schoolmates and the other Kawerau kids mentioned today who have passed away. Uncle Tasman - The Trembling Current that Scars is a contemporary moving image art project in progress from Aotearoa/New Zealand that interweaves a visual narrative of volcanic and geothermal activity with Maori cosmology and the environmental impacts of local pulp and paper industry. As the project takes shape, I anticipate that the soundtrack will draw out narratives from local Maori, mill workers, townspeople, activists and environmentalists who can tell of the destruction of the eco-system and the desecration of sites of significance.

The story I present is one-sided and is based on my first-hand experience of growing up in Kawerau, a “mushroom” town, established in the 1950s as home to the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill. Kawerau is in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand, or to describe it from a Maori perspective, is in Ngati Awa territory in the shadow of the sacred ancestral mountain, Putauaki, on Te Ika a Maui - the island known as Maui’s fish. Maui is known widely across the Pacific as a discoverer of lands, as well as a trickster demi-god.