Nukunuku Whakairo: Carving with the Camera is a kaupapa Māori underground visual repository that explores unconventional and boundary transmigration through creative practice and expression. It observes and documents perspectives of mana (authority) Takatāpui (queer et al.) Māori identities through transdisciplinary image-making. This wā-based (Māori, Indigenous, conceptually non-linear, time concept) media incorporates moving shadow and light carving methods juxtaposed with dramatic non-linear, pūrākau (source/story work/relation) visual sequences. A collaborative and explorative moving image that offers new perspectives on mana Takatāpui identity through a multi-modal whakairo (carving) methodology.
Nukunuku Whakairo: Carving with the Camera experiments with cross-medium creative moving image communication as a mechanism for fostering curiosity, wonder, magic, shape-shifting identities and resilience in the face of marginalisation. It documents the creative process of carving and blending experimental film techniques and materials. This multimodal wā-based methodology also serves as a framework for amplifying Takatāpui marginalised and silenced voices.
Artists Elliott and Barrett use specific methods, including locations related to ancestral lands and assorted types of camera lenses, to emphasise perspective complexity. Speculative filming processes were utilised as a device to activate the artist's intention, concepts and themes to breathe life into the mana Takatāpui positionality. The interaction between carving with light, shadow, and sound frequencies allowed for the manipulation of sculptural form and moving and still images to communicate the visual and sonic landscape of a ‘Nukunuku Whakairo’ nuanced approach. Finally, intentional underexposure of lighting effects creates contrasts between dark and light, capturing the journey of shining a light in the darkest corners of society to overexpose the beauty and sacredness of mana Takatāpui tangata in Western contemporary society.
Nukunuku Whakaiko first screened as a part of Dr. Zena Elliott's PhD exhibition INDIGI-[IA] TECHNO-ECOLOGIES, acting as a waharoa at Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau in March 2025. Nukunuku Whakairo, the visual repository, then travelled to Te Rohe o Mataatua and participated in the Light up Whakatāne Festival for Matariki as a living mural in July 2025. Continuing overseas to screen in the 14th annual Asinabka Film & Media Arts Festival, taking place in September 2025, in Ottawa, Canada.