Emily Wharekura

"It's us that changes" explores an indigenous view of time as a way to unpack feelings of alienation and estrangement, documenting my personal journey of finding and appreciating community through nostalgia and shared experience.

My painting practice explores the role that memories, shared experience and nostalgia play in fostering a sense of belonging within my community through the Māori concept of nonlinear time. These paintings focus on food as the centre of community gatherings, and its connection to manaakitanga and whakawhanautanga. The subject matter draws on my recent experiences among fellow Maori students at AUT, and childhood memories of my home in Rotorua. These memories have been reshaped by my present experience, affirming my identity as Wāhine Māori. I choose to omit parts of the foreground to mimic the fleeting nature of recollection. These paintings speak to feelings of being unanchored in the move to university, and to my personal insecurities feeling disconnected from whānau. My paintings explore the feeling of being torn between two places, two periods of time, two aspects of self; and ultimately finding my place in the space between.