Way of the Turtle @ Water, Peace, Power – Parihaka

In earlier posts about Way of the Turtle I wrote about our collaboration for Water, Peace, Power in Taranaki.

During the residency, we learnt a lot from our mentors Andrew Hornblow, Nigel Helyer and Allan Giddy. We also found the conversations with the other artists very enriching. The final work combined a micro-controller (picaxe) that had a sensor which triggered the audio and the turtle data presented in the spiral tube (representing Biami and Koru).

Way of the Turtle-Parihaka from bytetime on Vimeo.

Here is our statement for the project:

Art Project Vision for Parihaka

The work for Water, Peace, Power at Parihaka seeks to acknowledge both the tangata whenua of Parihaka and the yenbena of Yorta Yorta Nation. This site specific work is the first stage of the Way of the Turtle project, which focuses on cultural and community empowerment, skill sharing and finding the interconnections with other cultural perspectives. The project considers many layers of connection between water, land and people. The contiguity of the work includes the Dhungala creation story in Yorta Yorta and English languages, and data obtained via community engagement via TurtleSAT. This work acknowledges one of the Yorta Yorta totems, the Bayadherra (turtle) and the importance of the river to all life.

The Yorta Yorta belief is that “we are the land and the land is we”. The river represents our bloodstream, the mist represents our sweat and the rain represents our tears. In saying this, we also acknowledge the agreement made between the Crown and the Whanganui iwi which has given the Whanganui River legal rights as a sentient being.

“We are the river and the river is we”

componants

componants

The sound element of the work presented vocals of Parihaka descendent Jo Tito and Yorta Yorta Elder Sharon Atkinson, combining Maori, Yorta Yorta and English languages and stories.

Here is a map featuring the data from TurtleSAT – thanks to Ricky Spencer and NSW Department of Primary Industries for letting us play with their data. There is also some turtle data from Atlas of Living Australia.