It is part of the artist’s practice to photograph Māori artefacts from the collections of regional museums. Pardington has recently done so at the Whanganui Regional Museum. Although this piece is not from that series it is representative of that particular area of her work.. To quote Felicity Milburn of the Christchurch Art Gallery…(Tikis are) Traditionally worn close to the heart, heitiki are sacred to Māori as symbols of fertility and invested with great spiritual significance. Working within the tradition of the photographic still life, it was Pardington’s intention not only to record the physical attributes of these old and precious objects, but also to capture some of their more intangible qualities, such as the powerful sense of connection to the past

Info from Paul McNamara /in artist biography:

Most recently her photographs have returned to the formality of the photographic still life, particularly in relationship to whakapapa and surrounding issues of immanence, exploring the continuum of whakapapa, taonga as embodiment and ‘absolute access’ to tipuna, researching especially in relation to moko mokai, which the photographic portrait has replaced as the contemporary site of both mourning and memory for Māori.