Anau is a response to the immense weight that comes with carrying on tradition in the position of a compromised identity.

When your koro gets diagnosed with dementia and his Indigenous Kūki ‘Airani Māori body becomes property of the New Zealand government. When money is the only thing that will grant him his autonomy and right to rest with family. When the country keeps taking charge of the bodies we birth. 

Then you’re twenty-something, in the land of your ancestors, your mother tells of her grievances and anger: the disputes going on between her siblings, the heritage home that is so corrupted it has to be torn limb from limb, the money spent on substances, the 20th century divorce, the feijoas that grow in the backyard, the pet pig she owned as a child, the route she took to school and the bull that chased her home one day.

I was born part of her flesh, I think she has always realised that. Anau.