Ariana Davis (Māori / Pākehā / Hunk Papa Sioux) is an artist and activist originally from Whakatipu (Queenstown), Aotearoa New Zealand. As well as creating adornments for the body, her current practice lies in exploring and documenting the places her tupuna went, in her ancestral lands of Te Wai Pounamu. This work is a reclamation of the whenua, telling our own stories as we know them and traversing complicated relationships with cultural identity, honouring whakapapa (ancestry) and traditions in the modern world. 

Depicting Ka Tiritiri-o-te-Moana, particularly focusing on Aoraki, Rātou Rere Ki Uta, Rātou Rere Ke Tai is a reflection on our migrations around the world, around Te Moananui a Kiwa, around Aotearoa and Te Waihipounamu. Our migration returns us home to fly inland to our rangatira Aoraki to reignite te ahi kā, we leave to fly out to te moana exploring new places just like our Tīpuna before us. An interlinking reflection of past, present and future as Interislanders. 

— Ariana Davis, Artist Statement

The Water Tastes Different Here is on at Tautai Gallery till July 30 2022