Hinemihi: Te Hokinga – The Return

Hamish Coney, Mark Adams

Published by Rim Books in partnership with Two Rooms, December 2020.

Hamish Coney, author, in conjunction with Mark Adams, and contributions by Dr Keri-Anne Wikitera, Lyonel Grant and Jim Schuster.

Publication Launch: Tuesday 8 December 2020, 5.30 – 7.30pm

Two Rooms
16 Putiki Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland

Special guest speakers Ron Brownson, Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Dr Keri-Anne Wikitera, Senior Lecturer, AUT.

The author and artist will be present at the launch.

Rim Books and Two Rooms are pleased to announce the publication launch of Hinemihi: Te Hokinga – The Return.

The journey of the carved house Hinemihi o Te Ao Tawhito (Hinemihi of the Old World) is one defined by cataclysmic events and the unpredictability of elemental forces. Through eruptions, fires, wars and displacement she has endured. Today she is a revered kuia, adored by her iwi in the United Kingdom and her original owners and creators, Tūhourangi as well as wider iwi of Te Arawa.

Hinemihi is also an artwork, a taonga of rare beauty whose artist carvers, Tene Waitere and Wero Tāroi, are celebrated in this publication.

Hinemihi o Te Ao Tawhito will soon return to Aotearoa, after over a century standing in the gardens of Clandon Park in Surrey, home of the Onslow family whose ties to New Zealand date to the tenure of the 4th Earl, William Hillier Onslow’s tenure as Governor-General in the 1890s. This return, or hokinga, is the result of a landmark exchange agreement between the iwi of her original creators, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, The National Trust in the United Kingdom and numerous other stakeholders who have lobbied for and negotiated a new chapter so this whare can resume her connection to her people and whenua.

The publication is a celebration of one of New Zealand’s great photographic artists Mark Adams and marks his recent exhibition Hinemihi: Te Hokinga – The Return at Two Rooms Gallery in August, 2020. The publication also features numerous unpublished historic images sourced from private collections and New Zealand Museums.

With funding support from Creative New Zealand.