What systems interrupt our ability to read and respond to the signals of the natural world around us? Using a VMS (Variable Message Sign) traffic control board, this work interrupts the everyday with poetic provocations, asking viewers to slow down, look up, and reengage with the taiao. In reclaiming public space for tohu, He Tohu encourages a connection with ancestral ways of knowing, environmental awareness and challenging the systems that have long disconnected us from the land, sea, and skies.

Artist Bio

Sarah Hudson is a Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Pūkeko artist, researcher and mum from Whakatāne, Aotearoa. As a founding member of Kauae Raro Research Collective, Sarah has spent the last three years promoting and protecting Māori earth pigment paint-making practices. She splits her time between home-educating her 8-year-old, implementing research projects for Kauae Raro, and creating works with her other art collaboration, Mataaho Collective.