LAMENTATION (2019)
In Lamentation, a solo exhibition presented by Hastings Art Gallery, Jahnke commissioned new work by six poets including Witi Ihimaera and Tina Makereti. Drawing on their texts, he laments the destruction of our natural world.
Anchoring this collaborative project is Hone Tuwhare’s Rain. This visceral poem echoes Jahnke’s reference to Roimata Toroa.
Roimata Toroa (tears of the albatross), refers to the Toroa’s remarkable ability to drink salt water by expelling the salt out of its nostrils. Toroa is also a wanderer and roimata depicts the seabird pining for its distant homeland and breeding ground.
In tukutuku form, Roimata Toroa tells the Ngāti Porou story of the two sacred albatross that accompanied ancestor Pourangahua in bringing the kumara to Aotearoa. The pattern speaks of the misadventures of travellers who take shortcuts in haste to get to their destination. Its pattern is formed with stitches that fall vertically, like albatross tears, representing impending catastrophe.
Lamentation Exhibition catalogue
All photos credit: Norm Heke
‘The Age of Plastic’ by Craig Santos Perez
The doctor presses the probe
onto my wife’s belly. Ultrasound waves
pulse between fluid, tissue, and bone一
the embryo echoes. Plastic makes
possible. At home, she labors in an inflatable
tub. Plastic leaches estrogenic and toxic chemicals,
disrupts hormonal systems. After delivery,
she places her placenta in a Ziploc
and stores it in the freezer. Plastic is the perfect
creation because it never dies. Our daughter
sucks a pacifier and sleeps in a crib.
Whales, plankton, shrimp, and birds confuse
plastic for food. My wife turns on
the breast pump; milk drips into a bottle.
Plastic labors to keep food fresh, delivers
medicine and clean water. How empty:
to be birthed, used, then disposed.
In the oceans, there exists one ton of plastic
for every three tons of fish. How free:
when it finally arrives to the paradise
of the Pacific gyre一far from
its degrading makers. Will plastic make life
impossible? I press the plastic nipple
to our daughter’s lips. I wish
she, too, was made of plastic
to survive our wasteful hands.
So that she, too, will inherit
“a great future.”
