Kihikihi - He Kūaha Whetū (2026)

He Kūaha Whetū - A Stellar Gateway or A Doorway to the Stars

Multidisciplinary artist Jamie Berry's video transforms the projection screen into a quiet portal. Guided by Matariki values, the work invites subtle encounters with ancestry, stars, and memory.

At the heart of the work is the kihikihi (cicada) — a sacred tohu of time, renewal, and endurance across Indigenous cultures. In te ao Māori, the kihikihi signals raumati and the intensifying voice of the whenua. Across other Indigenous cosmologies, it marks cycles of rebirth and continuity. The work allows these resonances to sit together, creating a shared space of listening.

Rather than demanding attention, the work unfolds gently over time. The video is on a loop of approximately 7 minutes.

In this work, Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre becomes a place where:
● Hidden stories quietly surface
● Every day movement intersects with cosmic time
● Viewers are invited into moemoeā (dreaming forward)

Kihikihi - He Kūaha Whetū is a new commission for Matariki from CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image. Thank you to Elizabeth Ball Charitable Trust for supporting this screening.

ARTIST BIO

Jamie Berry is a multidisciplinary artist of Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi, and Ngāti Ruanui descent, originally from Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and based in Pōneke, Aotearoa. Her practice is grounded in whakapapa and explores the relationships between memory, place, and time through immersive audio-visual environments. Working across moving image, light, installation, and sound, she creates spatial experiences that bring ancestral presence into dialogue with contemporary digital systems.

Central to Berry’s practice is the activation of space through live audio-visual performance. She uses light in darkness to suggest movement and life, pairing projected imagery with resonant, often DNA-derived soundscapes that are composed in response to site. These works operate as temporal portals — spaces where past, present, and future co-exist — guided by Māori understandings of relational time and the space between worlds (te wāhi i waenganui).

This event is part of Matariki 2026, where we're celebrating Matariki with talented artists from Ōtautahi and beyond. Bring your friends and whānau to Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre (4-12 Hōngongoi July) for music, exhibitions, kapa haka, wānanga (workshops), night mākete and much more.