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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 New Zealand LicenseThis licence allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you mention us and link back to us, but you cannot change it in any way or use it commercially.
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Nathan Pōhio, Let it be to a Lofty Mountain, 2020
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TitleNathan Pōhio, Let it be to a Lofty Mountain, 2020
DescriptionLet it be to a lofty mountain is a moving image work of extremely detailed photographs recorded below the peak of Maukatere (Mt Grey), the ancestral mauka of Ngāi Tūāhuriri. Named after the whakataukī, ‘Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei’ ('Seek the treasure you value most dearly; if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.'), Pohio climbed Maukatere a number of times in preparation to record over 1000 exposures in early 2020.
Imagery in this work reverses the typical gaze from atop a mountain, instead of the vista, Pohio turned his camera toward the rough, rugged, and dry whenua, juxtaposing the stunning natural world with the industrial.
Part of a series of Pohio's 'Slider'works, the photos are cropped and stitched together to create rhythm as the work essentially shrinks the body of the viewer under giant, luminous images of whenua, slowly, silently, tracking by. Through an elegant use of scale, the work attempts to humble the viewer before nature, to recall our relationship to the whenua is of kaitaikitaka, where environmental responsibility secures a reciprocal relationship with te taiao, the living environment.
DescriptionLet it be to a lofty mountain is a moving image work of extremely detailed photographs recorded below the peak of Maukatere (Mt Grey), the ancestral mauka of Ngāi Tūāhuriri. Named after the whakataukī, ‘Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei’ ('Seek the treasure you value most dearly; if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.'), Pohio climbed Maukatere a number of times in preparation to record over 1000 exposures in early 2020.Imagery in this work reverses the typical gaze from atop a mountain, instead of the vista, Pohio turned his camera toward the rough, rugged, and dry whenua, juxtaposing the stunning natural world with the industrial.
Part of a series of Pohio's 'Slider'works, the photos are cropped and stitched together to create rhythm as the work essentially shrinks the body of the viewer under giant, luminous images of whenua, slowly, silently, tracking by. Through an elegant use of scale, the work attempts to humble the viewer before nature, to recall our relationship to the whenua is of kaitaikitaka, where environmental responsibility secures a reciprocal relationship with te taiao, the living environment.
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Nathan Pōhio, Let it be to a Lofty Mountain, 2020. Selwyn Stories, accessed 25/08/2026, https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/7149