Tracey Tawhiao
“Peace is a deeply subjective experience. We each understand it through our own lives. My peace is not necessarily someone else’s. One person’s peace can be another’s hell.
If a miracle happened tonight and I woke tomorrow feeling at peace, I would not assume there was peace everywhere. For me, peace begins with a delicate withdrawal from what contaminates the mind, body and soul. It takes shape in my actions. When I have peace, I spread it without trying, through my own peacefulness. My artwork is part of that movement. What I cultivate within myself enters what I make and, through it, my relationship with others.
I think of those who find moments of peace while living through war. That peace can exist amid such glaring crises makes me understand it as an internal state first. It does not end the violence, but it shows something of our capacity to hold peace even when the world does not. This is where the idea of world peace meets my artwork: in the individual, in what we make, and in what we give to the world.”
Tracey Tawhiao is a contemporary Māori artist and “artivist” from Aotearoa, New Zealand, whose multifaceted practice encompasses poetry, painting, performance and moving image. Drawing from her Māori heritage (Ngāi te Rangi, Whakatōhea, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), she explores the concept of spirituality or wairua, weaving together her connection to the natural world and indigenous philosophy. Her unique approach transforms negative language into positive narratives, using motifs inspired by Māori Symbolism to tell a new story of Te Ao Māori today. With a background deeply rooted in her experiences at her grandparents' home, where she first began to paint over the newspaper leaving the new news. Tracey has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Her work not only reflects her identity as a Māori woman but also serves as a powerful medium for reviving and sharing oral traditions and philosophies.
“MIND BODY SOUL”, graphical animation