6 days ago
Nelson photographer's 10-year Tuhoe project wins top award
Left: Children from the Teepa family drive the younger siblings home, after a swim in the Ōhinemataroa (Whakatane) River, in Ruatoki. Right; Tatsiana Chypsanava.
Photo:
Tatsiana Chypsanava
A photograph is taken in an instant, but an award-winning long-term photography project can take ten years - as
Tatsiana Chypsanava
discovered.
The Nelson-based photographer originally hails from Belarus and is a descendant of the Komi peoples of the Siberian North West Ural.
She moved to New Zealand in 2008, and worked for Archives New Zealand - which is where she met representatives of Tuhoe, who were preparing for a settlement hearing.
It led her to photograph the people living in Te Urewera, Tuhoe's ancestral land, on and off for a decade.
That project, called
Te Urewera - The Living Ancestor of Tuhoe People
- netted her the Asia-Pacific and Oceania Long Term Projects Prize at this year's World Press Photo Awards.
She joins Kathryn to talk about why she's drawn to telling the stories of indigenous people.
The
World Press Photo Exhibition is on in Auckland
from 26 July - 24 August, and Wellington from 5 September - 5 October.
