OUR DIVINE MONSTERS - DAUGHTER OF PUNGA - Bird Woman Body Art Installation for Waitangi, Rotorua 2023

by Karen Hansen May 31, 2023

DIVINE MONSTERS - DAUGHTER OF PUNGA, LIVE BODY ART SCULPTURE FEBRUARY 2023, FOR THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE: WAITANGI ROTORUA. (Ohinemutu)

Hongi: sharing breath and spiritual energy in mutual respect

Hongi at Waitangi Rotorua 2023 between Daughter of Punga and Veena Kameta. A custom which shares breath and spiritual energy in mutual understanding and respect

Photo: Snaparelic / Nikki Goldfinch

Blog by Karen Hansen-Daniels

When Waitangi: for the Love of the People (Rotorua Waitangi Celebrations, Ohinemutu) approached me (Karen Hansen-Daniels, Artful Addiction) and commissioned a live body art “sculpture” to perform and wander through the crowd at their incredible event - posing for selfies and creating atmosphere -I didn't know quite what I was getting into! “All good, kei te pai” I thought, excitedly! Bringing a vision of local Te Arawa Legendary Bird Woman KURANGAITUKU to life through body art and dance would be an amazing and honourable project.

For months, I immersed myself in her story - visiting the wahi-tapu (sacred places) and researching through bird lore and interpretations. Soon enough however, through deepening connection with the dark feminine in her, and open dialogue through art and intuitive writing - the true mahi (work) began to appear, and it was far more in so many ways that I had expected.

Artist: Karen Hansen - Pakeha, Ngati Wairere, 2023. For Artful Addiction.

Model: Connie Takarangi -Te Ati Haunui-a-Pāpārangi.

Karen Hansen (Daniels) at work on her live bodyart 2023

Photo: Snaparelic Photography / Nikki Goldfinch

Karen Hansen (Daniels) at work on model Connie Takarangi, transforming her into a living bird woman sculpture "Daughter of Punga" for Rotorua's official Waitangi Event : For the Love of the People 2023

“Every Feather you use in my creation, must be collected from the local land” her energy told me, “Fallen from the trees, the wind, wings lying still - flightless and silent. “These endings, found in swamps and marshes, trails trodden by old and new. Sometimes battered from their journeys, leave them as they are. “

“I am created from the broken and the beautiful. I rise, covered in the green of life and also of death. I live in the place between sleeping and waking, land and sky, water and earth. Let me walk and carve new patterns in the mud and clay.”

And so a journey of collection began.

This Artwork was both in the process and in the living sculpture you see before you: expressing herself, dancing and raging. Powerful, yet silent. Feathers of Manu (birds) who gave their lives - Koau, Pukeko, Magpie. The misfits, the rebels. The sacred.

“There is no birth without blood”. Kurangaituku demanded still more.

“Go to the Maunga (mountain) ” she said. "Gather Kokowai (Red Ochre) with karakia ( prayer). It is the blood of Papatuanuku: the Earth Mother. Tell the trees what you are doing, and why, the Ngahere (Living Forest) has long been my friend.”

So I gathered the red ochre and ground it into dust. Sacred Dust, the dust of all creation. But what to blend it with? I could not just rub it onto her body.

Then came the storms.. A Months worth of rain in a night. Auckland was flooding badly, Rotorua was blessed to get off lightly this time. “Put out a jar” She said: “Collect it. Let it overflow. Harness the mauri (the lifeforce). Mix it with that”.

So I did, and it was perfect. Land and Sky together: Papatuanuku and Ranginui (Earth Mother and Sky Father) Divine Masculine, and Divine Feminine.

“But I am a Weaver” She said, “ I must have Harakeke” (New Zealand Flax).

“I don’t have tiiiiime!” I wailed. “I am only one woman. I don’t know the skill and tikanga (respectful practice) of Raranga (weaving) , It will be too hard!”

“Here are the Rau” came the answer, as a ready cut sheaf of Harakeke appeared almost on my lawn. “I want you to learn”.

“I hear you, I hear you”. I agreed. I found myself a kaiako (teacher - my stepdaughter Toni-Elizabeth Daniels) to teach me the basics of weaving, honour and preparation. I sat with the Harakeke bushes and allowed them to speak to me in their own way. I discovered the gel, I marvelled at it’s rongoa (medicine) , practicality and wairua (spirituality).

.So I wove (very basically)... and as I did, I felt a great peace settle over me. I entered her doorway, I was within the realm she walked. Meditative, spiritual. I understood then, what she wanted me to know: that this, like all creative acts, is an action of power. That we are powerful, if we remember. That we all weave our lives together, our whanau, our world. We are bound to eachother, and we do the binding.

I have named this living sculpture: DAUGHTER OF PUNGA.

Punga, you see - is the God of Hateful and Hideous things. The rebels, the misfits, the pests. The things we don’t want to see, that we push into the shadow-realm. The things we curse, and shrink from and blame for all our troubles- yet also, in the form of carvings, figureheads, sculptures and gargoyles, place at the entrances to our most sacred places as threshold guardians.

It is not, she reminds us, from comfort and ease that light is born. It is from walking through the darkness. With The Divine Monsters inside us all.

Connie Takarangi performs at Ohinemutu, as Artist Karen Hansen's "Daughter of Punga" Living Sculpture Installation