Fiona Pardington's four photographs from her Te mate o te aroha/The pain of longing series (Acc nos 2007.067-070) document the O'kains Bay Maori and Colonial Museum collection of hei tiki, sacred items which were passed down across generations and evoke tribal histories. Pardington's photographs record a unique history, and engage with the ethics of museum display.

These works are a culmination of a long-held interest in portraiture. Pardington has been photographing hei tiki (neck ornaments) in museum collections since 2001. Hei tiki are living taonga (treasures) for Maori people. Resembling embryonic human forms with limbs barely developed and with oversized heads and large orbs for eyes, these beautifully expressive carved objects carry the wearer's whakapapa (genealogy) and are sought to emanate mauri (life force). Hei tiki are traditionally carved from pounamu (greenstone), a very hard stone found only in the South Island of New Zealand. Pounamu has been mined and controlled by the Ngai Tahu people (Pardington's people), who have allowed her access to otherwise restricted taonga. These ornaments are powerfully connected to people's ancestors and as a result are treated as individuals with their viewing and touching bound by strict cultural protocols. Pardington was interested in sharing these precious taonga with the wider New Zealand public who are mostly familiar with plastic, commercialised tiki. By using the conventions of portraiture she conveys each one’s intrinsic individuality, capturing their luminescence and alluding to their rich history.

One of the photographed hei tiki was carved by a Maori ploughman from Parihaka on the North Island. This expressive taonga impacts the viewer through its piercingly dominating eyes and its large, three-fingered hand almost invisible against the chest. The hei tiki was gifted to a Ngai Tahu woman, perhaps as repayment for the care this tribe took of the Parihaka prisoners while they were on the South Island.(1) There is poignancy in remembering the history of passive resistance from the Parihaka people who fought against the confiscation of their tribal land.

Pardington is interested in re-presenting New Zealand history through these arresting sculptures. To photograph the works Pardington used an old camera with 1920s filters that suppress detail which might otherwise distract from the overall figure. Pardington uses black and white film to catch the tones reflected off the rich pounamu, showing the hei tiki's 'spirit rather than its spellbinding colour'.(2) She photographs the small sculptures on her grandmother's faux-fur opera cape giving the images a textured, soft and profoundly personal context.

Pardington has said: 'through the discipline of photographic still life, I retrace the fragile limits of the speaking subject and in approaching the object with love, I wish also to touch upon the incommensurate nature of our taonga.'(3)

1. The Maori ploughman, along with many others, was imprisoned and sent to do hard labour in Dunedin in the late 1800s. Parihaka is a small community in the Taranaki region, which in the 1870s was said to have included the largest Maori village. At the time villagers resisted the confiscation of Maori tribal land by the New Zealand government by ploughing and fencing contested territory. In 1881 official armed men took over the village and displaced and jailed many of the villagers.

2. Pardington, Fiona. Telephone conversation with Maud Page, 31 January 2007.

3. Fiona Pardington, <http://www.chartwell.org.nz/cruise/recaquis/fionapardington.asp>, viewed 7 August 2006.