Tamaira Hook

Memory breathes, flowing through moments, weaving time through rhythms of whakapapa. My practice begins with an understanding that memory is dynamic and embodied. It moves and breathes, felt as much as seen. Memory extends beyond the image itself, living in the spaces around it and in the quiet act of returning. Kawakawa, a traditional plant of healing and mourning, is present in my work as a reference to whenua and the way grief and renewal coexist.

Through three moving-image portraits of wahine close to me - my partner, sister, and niece - I explore gestures that speak softly yet powerfully to presence. Filmed at 100 frames per second, fleeting gestures expand into moments that feel suspended, inviting a deeper encounter with presence. The portraits rise in scale, echoing photo walls on marae, with carved frames recalling whakairo and the depth of our relationships. Like the photos of our tūpuna on marae walls, these portraits hold the presence of those closest to me, grounding identity in whakapapa and place.

Motion holds space, where light and shadow, life and death interweave. Black-and-white gives way to colour, evoking i te ao i te pō, the passage between the world of light to the realm of night, from the familiar to the unknown.