Ngai-kore-tua-mao, she ditches, she floods
〉〉〉〉〉〉〉2026
Louie Zalk-Neale’s work encourages the viewer to see tī kōuka’s adaptabilty in a changing world full of new gifts and threats. Ngai-kore-tua-mao could guide us to dream of flourishing like the tī kōuka, through the floods and droughts of personal, environmental and political turmoil.
E mao ana ki ua, e ua ana ki mao — it’s clear until it rains, it rains until it’s clear.1
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Supported by Creative New Zealand and Kāpiti Council District Council Arts Sustainability Fund
Pāraerae kōkopu / Arero tuna, 2026
Whā tī kōuka (cabbage tree leaves)
$2500 – enquire here
Dye sublimation print on recycled aluminium
Edition of 3
$1500 – enquire here
Devices, pill packet, wristwatch, dye sublimation prints on recycled aluminium, polarising film, muka tī kōuka (cabbage tree fibre), whā tī kōuka (cabbage tree leaves)
Series of 6 in an edition of 3 (1/3)
$600 each – enquire here
Jammed lawn mower, 2026
Bike tyre, e-waste, muka tī kōuka (cabbage tree fibre), glass medicine bottle, whā tī kōuka (cabbage tree leaves)
$1500 – enquire here
Ka whakamana i te awa 2, 2026
Whā tī kōuka (cabbage tree leaves)
$1900 – enquire here
As her name suggests, Ngai-kore doesn’t have direct descendents but is still an important figure in the whakapapa of the tī kōuka.2 This parallels the importance of takatāpui and other queer people who don’t have tamariki by blood but still pass down their care, knowledge, and influence within whānau.
A similar depth of belonging is present in Louie’s reflections on their trans‑femininity:
There’s a false sense of stability when men and women are seen as opposites — we’re really just sticks floating down a vast flowing awa. Trans people embody the fluidity that underpins all natural systems. Most people love that about us, but some are afraid of our power to destabilise their fixed world views.
Louie’s work is influenced by their involvement in Ikawai Taura, a local Kāpiti kaupapa led by Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai and Greater Wellington Council. The group placed tī kōuka ropes into stream culverts, successfully allowing native fish to migrate upstream.
Louie was recently based in South Korea for the inaugural artist residency exchange between McCahon House and SCA Seoul. This research trip is present in the exhibition through watery glimpses of tī kōuka growing in foreign soil on Jeju Island, south of the Korean Peninsula.
1 Ngā Pēpeha a ngā Tīpuna : The Sayings of the Ancestors, Hirini Moko Mead, Neil Grove, Victoria University Press, 2001.
2 The whakapapa above was retold by tohunga Hohepa Delamere (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) and published in the pukapuka Dancing Leaves: The story of New Zealand’s cabbage tree, tī kōuka by Philip Simpson (2000, Canterbury University Press).