Nikau Hindin

Born 1991 in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa New Zealand
Lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau
Te Rarawa/Ngāpuhi

UNSW Galleries and Sydney Opera House

Te Wheiao II, In-Between Light and Darkness, 2022   

Ngā Maungakura, The Red Mountains, 2022

Manu Taketake, Native Bird, 2022

Pekerangi, Outer Palisade, 2022

Kōtuku,White Heron, 2022

Kōtiritiri, Shooting Star, 2022

Ngā Ara ki Hawaiki, Pathways to our Ancestral Homeland, 2022

Manu Taua (e ono ngā whetū), Flight as Fight (six stars), 2022

Te Wheiao I, 2022

Kōnekeneke, 2022   

Pātiki (Flounder), 2022

Ngā ahi Tīpua, 2022

Manu Taua (e toru ngā whetū), Flight as Fight (three stars), 2022

Rehua Pouwhakarae, 2022

Haumi, 2022   

Rehua, 2022   

Arorangi, 2022

Reu, 2022   

Manu Taketake, 2022

Roimata Toroa, 2022

Whiria, 2022

Rehua, Antares, 2022 

red and yellow ochre, black carbon ink on barkcloth, flax cordage, rattan core, supplejack,  kākāho, Austroderia toetoe, mountain daisy tassels, clay beads

Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and Creative New Zealand

Courtesy the artist

It is a balance of time, water, and energy that allows Māori artist Nikau Hindin to produce the aute (bark cloth) she paints with the maps, calendars, and motifs of her culture. Unlike other bark lineages across Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Great Ocean), 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.

Documenting the seasons and cycles of Aotearoa New Zealand, the knowledge that Hindin embeds within her work, from star maps to kites, is derived from a wellspring of Indigenous wisdom that has survived for millennia. Often painted with the red Kokowai ochre borrowed from the veins of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother), every work allows Hindin to engage in a practice of cultural rejuvenation.

For each piece that Hindin creates charting seas, skies, seasons, and stories, it is clear that for her the right direction is always in the footsteps of those who have walked before her.

Nikau Hindin is a contemporary Māori artist deeply engaged in the renewal of the Māori aute (bark cloth) making tradition in Aotearoa New Zealand. Unlike other bark lineages across Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Great Ocean), the Māori bark cloth technique that Hindin employs was last practiced in Aotearoa more than a century ago when the paper mulberry tree that is the main source of bark was almost made extinct.
Including motifs from Māori culture as well as other designs, architecture, and textile traditions, Hindin also 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, and as a guide to new auspicious lands to settle on.