Motutapu

Benjamin Work and Brendan Kitto
Foreword by Zoe Back
Essays by Pita Turei, Paul Johansson and Stan Wolfgramm

Published by Rim Books, August 2022

Paintings by Benjamin Work, Photographs by Brendan Kitto

Design by Shaun Naufahu and Giordano Zatta

Card-cover, perfect bound, 176 pages (indigo 130gsm Satin Matt) Cover (270gsm Bagdad Brown)
203mm x 254mm portrait, Limited edition of 250

ISBN 978-1-99-116520-6

RRP $70

MOTUTAPU is the conclusion of a four-year journey by artist Benjamin Work and photographer Brendan Kitto. This book looks at the shared history of Motutapu (sacred island) throughout Moana Oceania—including Tongatapu, Rarotonga and at the entrance to the Waitematā Harbour here in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Motutapu is a place of sanctuary. Positioned at the entrance of great harbours, straddling the open ocean and the mainland, it serves as a gateway for navigators arriving and departing on voyages. The lifting of tapu and making things noa took place on Motutapu, allowing navigators to continue with their journey back to their closest kāinga, even if it was generations later.

Work and Kitto’s inquiry into Motutapu was initially centred around the shared name. What soon became apparent was a deeper connection to their own hohoko/ʻakapapa (genealogy) as they travelled to three of the Motutapu locations and connected with key knowledge holders. Motutapu has become a metaphor for Work and Kitto as a starting point for these personal journeys. Through Work's paintings and Kitto's photographs of their journeys, combined with the introductions to the three Motutapu locations by Pita Turei, Paul Johansson and Stan Wolfgramm the book offers, for the extended diaspora of Moana Oceania, a way for reconnection and reconciliation and as a reminder of what joins communities across time and space.

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