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Te Ahi Ka: The Fires Of OccupationStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
Local DescriptionMartin Toft is an artist and educator who has exhibited and published widely internationally. He was born in Aarhus, Denmark (1970). Self-taught in photography he completed his MA (by Project) in Fine Art at the University of Portsmouth in 2000. He moved to Jersey, Channel Islands in 2004 to take up his current post of Teacher of Photography (part-time) at Hautlieu school. He works on commissions and long-term independent and collaborative projects and his practice combines documentary and fine art approach to explore social, anthropological and cultural themes, often immersing himself in communities for long periods of time. His work is underpinned by archival research using lens-based media across photography, video, sound and text. DescriptionIn 1996 Martin Toft spent six months in the middle and upper reaches of the Whanganui River in an area known as the King Country. Here he met Maori who were in the process of reversing the colonisation of their people and returning to their ancestral land, Mangapapapa which is on the steep banks of the river inside Whanganui National Park. At the end of his journey Toft was given the Maori name Pouma Pokai-Whenua. |