doodle of Mister Torgue w a hearing aid

tihewa mauri ora! (2023)

Art Form: Tukutuku
This piece was made as a culmination of the many days of my youth at tangihanga（funerals）, staring into the tukutuku panels that adorned the walls, imagining them as circuits, components of a machine.
More recently in the art space I regularly attend, I was given an opportunity to learn tukutuku weaving, and it made me recall those childhood musings, so naturally, I took them to their logical conclusion, and made these 3 tukutuku panels in the form of components in PCIe ports, each bearing binary on them (WHITE=0, RED=1), when put together create the phrase "tihewa mauri ora!"

This is a variant of a common phrase that is often placed at the end of mihi（speeches） and karakia（incantations）, and has ties to a māori story of the creation of the first person*, and her first act of living being that of a sneeze ^{(tihewa/tihei meaning sneeze)}

_{*i say person and not human with specific intent here, humans come later}

On Friday I packed up my tablet and art gear in anticipation of moving to my new home.

Then Saturday we had flash flooding across the province and all of the roads to my new home washed away or had to be closed because they were five feet under. The family home also saw some flooding in the basement and I had to relocate my computer to the kitchen table much to the inconvenience of everyone. Especially my spine.

Basement is mostly dried out but the carpet will have to be tossed out. No word on the roads to my new home yet.