DEPOT Artist
Ashleigh Zimmerman
Ashleigh Zimmerman (Kai Tahu) is an artist and Art Educator based in Whangārei. Her lens-based practice intersects with whenua/uku practice, and explores connections to Papatūānuku in relation to her identity as a wahine Māori. As an educator, Ashleigh is passionate about fostering an encouraging rangatahi to develop their own voice in their art as a vehicle to express their own identity and unique experiences.
Zimmerman completed a Master of Māori Visual Art through Toioho ki Āpiti at Massey University, developing mahi that communicates a sense of suspended animation in Te Kore as a metaphor for her infertility haerenga. Connecting to kaupapa such as whakapapa, whare ngaro, and tinana sovereignty, her work aims to c Zimmerman uses light painting techniques along with elemental subject matter to capture intimate and universal narratives with an ethereal quality.
About the Exhibition:
Whare Ngaro is a pivotal exhibition that unapologetically addresses the kaupapa of infertility through a wahine Māori lens. Visceral, powerful and confronting, the exhibition leans into the uncomfortable and provokes dialogue about wāhine and their intimate relationship with whakapapa.
Within Māori tribal cosmo-genealogical narratives there are two sources of the fructifying power associated with Hine-ahu-one: one associated with Hawaiki; the other with Kurawaka. It is the latter that is manifest in ngā whakaahua o Te Whare Ngaro exhibition in which red chromatic symbolism is a provocation of a broken lineage; a failure to maintain whakapapa, and with it, an erasure of a tūpuna lineage.
Kōkōwai from Kurawaka, the fertile region of Papatūānuku, is captured within the lens of the camera in multiple guises as te hau o Tawhiri (the wind-blown dust), te Rangitoto o Ruaumoko (the molten lava of the volcanic deity), te toto o Hine-ahu-one (the blood of Hine the earth formed maiden), te tapu o Karihi (the sanctity of the vagina) and ngā wai tapu (the sacred waters) invested with ihi and the potential for procreation and conception.
