Cosmologies is a new exhibition at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, placing the practices of Nikau Hindin and Naminapu Maymuru-White in conversation with one another as two artists who share an approach to making whereby cosmology is not a metaphor but a material language; a guiding force led by indigenous knowledge pathways; a reference to law, memory, navigation, spirit energy, and ecological care. 

Nikau Hindin (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngai Tūpoto) is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural practitioner. Grounded in matauranga Māori shared across generations, her practice reflects ongoing relationships to whakapapa and te taiao – where ‘being’ is always ‘being in relation’; where knowledge is located in the body, in material, and in time. The heart of her practice centres on the revitalisation of traditional cultural practices from te ao Māori, concentrating on aute as her primary material. A collaborative labour of love, in working with aute Hindin harvests, strips, beats, and soaks its fibres across months into its final cloth-like form. 

In Cosmologies, Hindin presents three beautiful artworks made of aute – one along the wall mapping stellar movements in alignment with the maramataka, and two large quilts hung as crescents encircling Naminapu Maymuru-White’s works within, creating a constellation of cosmology within the gallery space itself. 

Sof had a kōrero with Nikau Hindin about Cosmologies and her overall practice.