Face Value

Face Value looks at Maori facial tā moko in its unique environment – absorbing the viewer’s attention but refraining from entering into the history, specific cultural knowledge or politics of moko. The scenes are of real people in their homes, familiar spaces, both indoors and outdoors: we experience the sincerity, human impulse and gaze of understanding passing through the eyes of one generation to the next – from grandfather to grandchild, daughter to mother and on and on.
Eight years of research and documenting ta moko has been a crucial investment of time to allow for the relationships to grow, not only between the recipient and artist, but also between myself and the people that appear in the images.


'Face Value' the solo exhibition is currently touring New Zealand Feb 2009 - Dec 2012 by Exhibition Services. See here, opened the 14th Feburary 2009 at Pataka Museum and Gallery, Porirua, Wellington 09, is currently at the Sarjeant Gallery in Wanganui, and will open at the Rotorua Museum 8th August 09. Beijing Music Festival. Face Value, film Installation 30th Oct - 6th Nov and it has been invited to exhibit in Tasmania in April 2011.



“My photographic/film work is about intimacy, and simultaneously, is about challenging people’s perceptions.”   SERENA STEVENSON