Leilani Kake: Ngā Hau E Wha – The Four Winds

Leilani's work the four winds is something rather contorversial in the fact that it's four naked women floating in mid air. However, when we look beneath the surface we find there is a much deeper meaning to the work..


Through this four-channel video installation Leilani investigates the cultural prohibition of nudity. Leilania looks into the politics and histories related to preconceptions of the body for Māori and Pacific women.

The audio soundtrack of Ngā Hau E Wha (which Leilani states is a song to women) is in maori, and in english translates to (just a part):

'Reveal the dark night
Reveal the nights that gropes
Reveal the night that causes you to sleep...'


'The 'Po Uriuri' is the cold dark night that can be felt. Po tangotango can be described as the night that gropes you as you pass through it. This 'Po tangotango' is similar to a child passing through the virginal entrance to achieve life into this phsyical world.

"Whakau ai te moe" depicts the intensity of the child sleeping within the womb and after birt. The use of the Whiro reminds us that the treat of death is still possible adter the birth of an infant.'
- Translation taken from information available at the exhibition.

When we first walk in to the room, it is dark and really scary. I was actually really hesitant to walk into this uncertainty at first...
In a way the darkness is like being in the womb (the night that gropes us). The uncertainty of the world that is about to surround us.

Then we see these four women of different life stages, floating in mid air in water... The water is like the birth of new life.
The four walls represent the four stages of womanhood "youth, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause"...
Each women has a unique movement which depicts their personality, age and of course brings out their beauty in individuality.
It also gives a great sense of purity and beauty by showing these women all naked. It gets us thinking about our own beauty and how wonderfully we are made.


Social/Cultural context of the art work:

Statistics show that Pacific island and Maori women have the highest percent cases of breast and cervical cancer, and also heart disease. It is said they are preventable if detected early. Maori women also have the highest rates of smoking and NZ's numbers of teen pregnancies continue to rise...
Leilani's thought-provoking work was inspired by rather unsettling statistics that reveals the unusually high incidence of preventable cancers in Māori and Pacific women.

Leilani address' the issue by stating that ''Loving our whanua starts with loving ouselves, and taking care of ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually (hauora). We as women need to engage in discourse that will lower these health risk statistics and educate all women"...

Clearly she has a heart towards the wellbeing of fellow women (especially the local Pasific and maori women) in NZ.
Through this installation she raises the awareness of their indivual beauty and urges them to look after themselves and realize how 'hauora' (maori for wellbeing) is.


The work also has significant feminist context behind it:




Leilani's work, in a way, on the feminism side reminds me of Judy Chicago's diner table... making a real stament about womens importance. THis was a show that came out in the 1980's, in which many of the 25 plates set up contain flower like 'vulva' symbology. This was really taking a stand for women to stand up for themselves. Just like Leilanis work.