Canvas editorial: Sarah Daniell behind the scenes with Nikau Hindin and Kiri Nathan

Nikau Hindin, cultural practitioner and artist. Photo / Mataara Stokes

EDITORIAL

The rain is coming from all angles as I crawl across town to Kiri Nathan’s fashion design workshop, Te Āhuru Mōwai (which means shelter or safe haven), in Glen Innes. It’s impressive — the scale of the building, yes, but the insides are where it’s at. The place is humming with industry and creativity; clothes in diaphanous silk and sequins float on tall hangers, like sea foam or manifestations of a glorious dream.

There is pounamu in a wooden case; there’s kākahu and weaving. Journalist Jodie Ihaka arrives with a cameraman, to discuss an upcoming story. A pattern maker has a question, and I wander the showroom in a sort of reverie.

“Haven’t you got someone to do this for you?” asks Nathan. I’m picking up a dress for our cover shoot with artist Nikau Hindin. But then I’d miss out on all this, I say.

Outside the rain is still sideways. I jump in my car to head in the other direction, west, to where Hindin is staying in Te Atatū. She’s preparing for an exhibition in Berlin. Her dog, Rewa, greets me at the gate and Hindin takes me into the studio. Hindin’s partner, musician and journalist Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes, says kia ora before returning to recording waiata anthems and video. Artist Rongomai Grbic-Hoskins is there, too, helping drape and hang bark cloth for the backdrop.

Hindin and I open out the clothing options — this or this? And with that, or that pair of earrings? Photographer Mataara Stokes arrives and the garage is set up for the shoot.

Hindin, who is interviewed in this week’s issue of Canvas by Leonie Kapea Hayden, is part of an impressive line-up of artists at the M9 event in Auckland on July 6. She longs for more positive stories about Māori, she says. “I have studied media; I know those headlines.”

When you weave and craft a world of beauty and integrity within your own world, the strands are far-reaching. Hindin is calm, focused. She tells me that she has so much to do, to achieve. She is talking about her immediate deadlines. The rain is coming in from all angles. But she has much to do. And she will.