Rūaumoko squirmed inside Papatūānuku’s womb. Each time he squirms fire and rock and lava pierce through the Earth. As Rūaumoko grows he comforts Papatūānuku in her grief and lives in her belly keeping her company. Each time he rises up to the surface the Earth shakes violently and splits before Papatūānuku calms him. You said I calmed you the way no one else could, but now we don’t speak at all. In the apocalypse will you think of me? What if the rāhui will never end. Kauri used to grow in thick forests all across Te Tai Tokerau and down into Tāmaki Makaurau and King country. Some of my ancestors cut these forests down, some wept at their erasure. All the other trees started to rot in the green muck spilling in from tramper boots, the dairy sludge and the piss that stains Papatūānuku killing Tōtara, Tānekaha, Taraire, Tawa, Miro and Rewarewa. What happens when it’s all gone and can never be undone. Stay at home and drink a beer. Remember we are all just plugged into the Matrix. Queenie does a karanga at Honeanga’s tangi. Who are these people I dream about? They call to me in my sleep. Would you come to my tangi? The precarity of everything is a crushing weight for anybody to carry. Please help me I am hurting very much.

An interactive text by Hana Pera Aoake.

This text was written in response to Georgina Watson’s project Larks in the dawn, published earlier this year on Un Magazine. The text is available here.

The title refers to: Dodie Bellamy, “Sex space” in Academonia (San Francisco: Krupskaya, 2006), 35.

Audio documentation of A listening event which accompanied the exhibition can be found here.

View Body fluids are poetic, not slime but nectar