"Te Irihanga was a settlement below Whakamarama, near Tauranga City, that was destroyed during the Tauranga Bush Campaign of 1867. Ignited by an illusion that the growing Pai Marire faith encouraged rebels or aggressors, a military force of the British 12th Regiment led the Tauranga Bush Campaign, along with the colonial First Waikato Regiment and Te Arawa recruited by Gilbert Mair. Together they employed the infamous Scorched Earth Policy. Although there is little evidence to justify such extreme measures, this campaign saw numerous Māori settlements and cultivations from Whakamarama to Waoku destroyed.

The exhibition Irihanga, which means to suspend or to hang, employs 150 trail markers to signify the years passed since the settlement Te Irihanga was devastated. They also indicate the geographical knowledge of the Kaimai and Hautere Forests that provided safety from Mair’s troops who were in unfamiliar territory.  The close-up shots of fauna endemic to the Kaimai Ranges aid the portrayal of the confined proximity of fighting that took place in the bush. The narrative, written by Matariki Williams and read by Geraldine Hinemoa Reweti, positions Ngāti Ranginui Kingitanga hapu as the active protagonists in our own narratives." [1]

_{[1] Bridget Reweti, “Irihanga,” Bridget Reweti, accessed April 3, 2024, https://www.bridgetreweti.com/irihanga.}

"Bridget Reweti’s work Ziarah, 2018, made during a residency at the Cemeti Institute of Art and Society in Jogjakarta Indonesia shares the experiences of Tupaia (c.1725 – 1770), a Tahitian navigator, translator and priest who travelled on Cook’s Endeavour from Ra’iatea in the Society Islands, with his nephew Taiata. Tupaia played a critical role in interactions between the British and tangata whenua - people of the land in Aotearoa New Zealand, acting not only as a translator but as a mediator who people trusted and held in very high regard. After his first visit, Tupaia never returned to Aotearoa, as both he and his nephew Taiata died while the ship was docked in Indonesia which was then the Dutch-ruled Batavia.  

Narrated by Safir Islami, a Betawi man who Reweti shared time and space with, the work reveals histories of Tupaia’s journey to Indonesia, information shared by Reweti paired with Islami’s knowledge of the islands to the north of Jakarta in the Java Sea. Ziarah, which translates to pilgrimage in Arabic is in many ways a document of the journey Islami and Reweti and translator Edwina Brennan took together to Damar Besar, the final resting place of Tupaia and Taiata, and the conversations they shared, particularly those of the seas and oceans which both Islami and Reweti have great respect, reverence and concern for. There is a sense of reciprocity in the work, of a meaningful relationship between the two and an awareness of exchange and transaction that Reweti has explored in other works she has made on international residency.

Ziarah, 2018, takes us on a journey to the resting place of Tupaia, although we don’t see the grave that Islami and Reweti visit which they believe may be his, an omission made in respect of Tupai, Taiata and their community. The work brings to the fore not only Reweti’s relationship to Tupaia and his experiences, but also the nuances of colonial adventure, stories of human connection, of affection, of journeys and of humanity and mortality. This is twofold in that Islami and Reweti forge new connections with each other, bringing forth a new shared history in the creation of this work." [2]

_{[2] Text provided by artist}