October 29, 2018
Protest photos win NZ Geographic award
A photojournalist taking pictures of a protest on her ancestral whenua says she wants to capture history.
Qiane Matata-Sipu won the photostory award at the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year Awards for six photos of the occupation beside the Otuataua stonefields in Māngere.
They were part of a decade-long effort to record life around Ihumātao where she grew up.
"I wanted to document that particular moment in history, those people that were there, and still are there, what that kaupapa is about, what that place currently looks like, because of course we're coming into the building season and there's a big chance that place could be changing any day now," Matata-Sipu says.
The occupiers are trying to stop a Fletcher Residential development on the site, which could be one of the earliest places of Māori occupaiton in the region.
Her next project is a multi-media series on 100 indigenous women in Aotearoa who are doing things differently.
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