Tūhoe - Māori Community
When I was 20, I went to live with an elderly Māori woman, Puhi, and her son Niki in the remote Te Urewera Ranges.
On and off over two years, I filmed them and captured their way of life in a mediative here-and-now documentary, In Spring One Plants Alone.
Thirty years later I returned to more fully unravel her experiences and made the feature film, Rain of the Children.
These images were created during the making of those two films. Some of them show the actual Puhi and her son Niki and others are recreated, largely through working with her relatives. Together they give a picture of her life and her striking experiences - she was considered a princess at age 14 and was pregnant with her first child when a massive police raid invaded their settlement, killing her lover and causing both her leader and his son, her husband, to be unfairly arrested.
Nothing in words can articulate the power of being invited into her world on me. I hope that these photos give some voice to her extraordinary life and experiences.
Images
