Join us for a spotlight talk with 24th Biennale of Sydney artist, Nikau Hindin, who will appear by her work and the works of the collective, Aumoana Group, comprised of Nikau Hindin, Ebonie Fifita-Laufilitoga-Maka, Hina Puamohala Kneubuhl, Hinatea Colombani, and Kesaia Biuvanua; hanging on display in the Turbine Hall at White Bay Power Station.
They will discuss the themes and content of the work, their practice and the process of realising the project.
Biography
Nikau Hindin is a contemporary Māori artist deeply engaged in the renewal of the Māori aute (bark cloth) making tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Bark cloth is a major cultural language across Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Great Ocean of Kiwa), an art form and technology which spread together with the migration of the Austronesian ancestors of the Māori and of other nations in the Pacific (and Indian Ocean), who carried the mulberry trees from their original homeland in Taiwan throughout the Pacific for this purpose.
Unlike other Pacific bark lineages, the Māori bark cloth technique that Hindin employs was last practised in Aotearoa more than a century ago when the paper mulberry tree that is the main source of bark was almost made extinct. While also including other motifs from Māori culture as well as other designs, architecture, and textile traditions, Hindin uses the bark as an instrument to express another Indigenous technological lineage, the kites or manu. Manu means both kite and bird in Māori, and while often used for recreation, they were also used for divination, communication, as well as a guide to new auspicious lands to settle on.