Shared vision

Five artists walk into Bunnings in New Lynn, West Auckland, where they examine products like screen doors, insect mesh, rope, netting and weed matting a good deal more thoroughly than the average DIYer. When they leave, they walk back to their Airbnb with rolls of mosquito netting and take steps toward making New Zealand art history.

Just three days before the country returned to lockdown, Mata Aho Collective – made up of Māori artists Erena Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti and Terri Te Tau – and acclaimed senior artist and weaver Maureen Lander were awarded the 2021 Walters Prize, worth $50,000, for their artwork Atap?.

It’s the first time a collective of Māori women has taken home the country’s top contemporary art prize, named after artist Gordon Walters and awarded every two years to recognise leading local exemplars.

It is also likely to be the first time that an artwork made on the floor of a campground community hall has won the celebrated prize. (before dawn) was made in the hall at Pinewoods Motor Park in Red Beach, north of Auckland, partly because it was close to Maureen, but also because it was spacious enough to unfurl the