Watch: Matthew McIntyre-Wilson, Māori artist
Filmed in Ahuru Mōwai, the taonga Māori storeroom, Wellington artist Matthew McIntyre-Wilson talks to Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa about learning from the hīnaki in our collection.
Hīnaki are skilfully made forms used as eel traps. They are baited and then placed in a river’s current, or weighted down on the riverbed where the eels enter the inverted openings and can’t escape.
“But making them in the old way has really made quite a significant difference to the understanding, and even doing that there’s still so much more to learn about the materials.
“I can follow the path of that thread but actually getting a full understanding of how those threads were manipulated in the old way to get the result that I’m looking at, I still … The muscle memory is what I’m trying to put back.”
– Matthew McIntyre Wilson