REPRISE seeks to repeat, to renew, to resume – connected through the facets of materiality and fragility,  an embedded connection to the act of making.  

Within uku, there is a connection to whenua. Whether the clay comes portioned in a plastic bag or  harvested from the land of my iwi, the connection remains. A lineage stretching vast and ancient. Where  does it begin? Where did it start? Years of separation. I know where it ends— it’s a pity I know where it ends.  

A web made of kōwhaiwhai, made of uku, made of _______.  

A lace of lost love woven together.  

A web of ______ laced together.  

A connection to ________, a connection to something —  

A web laced together, reminiscent, a reminder of my own connection to myself. 

A web laced in fragility.  

A reminder of my own fragility.  

A remnant of my own fragility, evidence of my existence or what came before. 

A process of both.  

A broken web, pieced together, hoping to make something whole — 

Again.  

The uku holds the whenua, the whenua holds the uku, like the web holds me, connected to itself, branching  into different versions – past and future, people to encounter, love to lose, life to see. Threads shooting off  into self-complexities. But I know – it is not self-entrapment. I am not ensnared in my thoughts or desires.  

Perhaps this is a reflection —  

A reflection of structures morphed into a web made of uku. 

A duality. Again, I exist in duality. Perhaps it’s more than two. But it's easy to assume duality because of my  two parents, two lineages, two belongings. This web holds a duality of fragility and stability, balanced  precariously. Vulnerability rendered in clay — fragile yet enduring. Two that cannot exist without the other. 

A single thread affects the whole structure.  

It is complex, yet completely simple:  

I cannot exist without you.  

I cannot exist without two parts.  

A duality of soft and hard. 

Spinning threads, spinning yarns, spinning tales.  

Merging my connection, mending my connection, back again, in reprise.