Brisbane Triennial 2024: Paemanu highlights Ngāi Tahu heritage with Awa Toi

Awa Toi traces Paemanu's journey along the Waitaki, the sacred river that flows from Aoraki, their ancestral mountain.

• Paemanu, a Ngāi Tahu visual arts group, will participate in the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane on Saturday.
• The exhibition, titled Paemanu: Awa Toi, traces the group’s journey along the sacred Waitaki River.
• Around 700,000 people are expected to attend the exhibition.

Ngāi Tahu contemporary visual arts group Paemanu has been preparing for the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial opening in Brisbane on November 30 for months.

Paemanu has been invited to participate in the Triennial alongside more than 300 artists, makers and thinkers from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Audiences of the Triennial are expected to exceed 700,000 visitors.

The exhibition, Paemanu: Awa Toi traces the group’s journey along the Waitaki, the sacred river that flows from Aoraki/Mt Cook, their ancestral mountain.

“Ngāi Tahu people were travellers, traversing the long coastlines, mountain ranges and waterways across Te Wai Pounamu [the South Island of New Zealand]” reflects Paemanu chair, Kiri Jarden.

“Knowledge of the land, climate, creatures and resources of this long Pacific island followed this way of life and allowed space and time for gathering and preserving and for creativity.”

Paemanu has been invited to participate in the Triennial alongside more than 300 artists.

“We have always been inspired by ana whakairo, the rock art which is found across the island with significant sites in close proximity to our awa, the Waitaki River” says artist Ross Hemera, pou tokomanawa for Paemanu.

“I grew up there, and spent hours drawing and exploring the ana whakairo as a young fella.”

Paemanu formed in 2013 and has exhibited at several major events and art institutions in the South Island.

In 2015 the group exhibited at Te Matatini and in 2021 their exhibition Tauraka Toi saw the group take over the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

“Ahead of this exhibition in Brisbane, which is our first international project, we asked ourselves, how do we act as good manuhiri [guests] when visiting another land?” Jarden said.

“We want to acknowledge the Turrbal and Yaggera peoples, the original custodians of the Brisbane, and find the things that connect us – the land and the river while also sharing some of those things which are important to us like whakapapa, mahinga kai, manaakitanga and kai hau kai.”

Paemanu: Awa Toi will feature work from over 40 Ngāi Tahu artists