The rock art of Ngāti Māmoe and Waitaha tangata of Te Waipounamu has been a longstanding influence in the work of Ross Hemera. He first visited a rock shelter, Takiroa, containing some of these drawings with his whānau when he was just seven years old. Tahito: a bird for the future embodies Hemera’s interest in the drawings of his tūpuna while being grounded in his understanding of his own Ngāi Tahutanga and involvement with the Ngāi Tahu artist collective Paemanu.

Manu, or birds, are a common motif in rock art in Te Waipounamu. Tahito: a bird for the future features a manu with an intimidating serrated jaw looking towards four smaller manu perched on its dramatically extended wing. The three talons on the feet of this manu are reminiscent of both rock art and whakairo depictions of birds as well as humans. The sculpture is held together by silver bolts, purposely exposed – a signal that while inspired by some of the oldest surviving forms of toi Māori, this is a contemporary interpretation.

The title Tahito: a bird for the future recognises that time in te ao Māori is nonlinear. Tahito, meaning to be ancient, references the rock art that inspires Hemera while the subtitle, ‘A Bird for the Future’ imagines what the original ambitions of those tūpuna who made the rock art drawings might be. We might view the manu as looking towards subsequent generations, with the whakataukī ‘ka mua ka muri’ – the idea we should look to the past to inform the future – in mind. These manu are tohu or symbols left to us from the deep past; they are flying backwards into the future.

In the context of the gallery, and the multiple art histories that underpin our work, this bird for the future also invokes the upcoming reopening of our space to the public after its period of closure through winter.