The phrase ‘Kauri Ki Uta, Kauri Ki Tai’ was gifted to The Kauri Project by Te Roroa artist Will Ngakuru as a call for kauri to once more clothe the landscape from mountain to sea. This photograph depicts the classic kauri bark ‘camouflage’ pattern, taken from a tree on Kohu Rd, Titirangi, overlaid with the faint silhouette of a recently dead kauri on nearby Tanekaha St. Kauri dieback spores are unseen, spreading hidden within the soil. The dead kauri foreshadows what lies ahead if we can’t halt that spread.

Born in Kawerau, New Zealand, Natalie Robertson (Ngati Porou, Clan Donnachaidh) makes photographic and moving image works that explore Maori knowledge practices and cultural landscapes. Her practice engages with conflicting settler and indigenous relationships to land and place. She has exhibited extensively throughout New Zealand and internationally. Robertson is also a founding member of the Auckland-based collective Local Time, which facilitates site-specific projects that speak to local and indigenous contexts.