While barkcloth is still made throughout the Pacific Islands, the practice was largely lost here in Aotearoa. By no mean feat, Hindin is bringing aute back.
Evidence of old aute in Aotearoa is scant. What is known comes from secondary sources, like oral histories and tapa beaters found preserved in swamps.
But Hindin's hard work has brought her an adoring local and international audience.
Most of her exhibitions this year were overseas with shows in Canada and Australia. She has just sent pieces away for a show in Paris and is exhibiting in Japan and Nepal next year.
Whatever Hindin makes, the world wants.
“With all my mahi I want it to look Māori but also look quite distinctive. It's recognisably Māori but not like anything you've ever seen before. That's the balance I'm trying to achieve.”
Not only an artist, Hindin also educates, inviting the audience into her world. By doing so she helps foreign audiences understand Māori art through social media and her mailing list.
Hindin, descended from Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi and Ngāi Tūpoto, explains the stories and meaning behind her work and the process that turns a tree into art.
“My practice is slow and intentional. It's as slow as plants growing. And social media is all about instant gratification, so it's interesting to be a part of both of these worlds.”
“People want to support my practice. There's a new wave of collectors who are keen to support Māori artists and have an insight into their practice and philosophy.”
Hindin has no dealer so she makes her own moves.
“When you're an artist you have to be a good business person, you have to be good at storytelling.”
Because her art stems from Māori culture and the art market from a western society, Hindin says at times she is “juggling these two worlds” as a Māori artist.
“We have to participate in capitalism, and being Māori, that can be a challenge. But also you have to acknowledge that our ancestors were good business people before all our resources were stolen.”
So Hindin has carried on that tradition of successful trading.
“I'm really lucky that there's such a huge demand for my work so I can do what I want and create my own rules.
“I don't do commissions for people, I create work that is meaningful to me and the ideas I am exploring in that moment.”
From the Far North, raised in Tāmaki Makaurau, Hindin says she was surrounded by activists, artists and strong women growing up.
“I had a pretty amazing childhood in an urban Māori context in a rumaki reo (Māori language school) where we had our own curriculum.”
Her grandmother, mother and aunties were all either artists or clothing designers so the idea of being a creative was natural.
“I have wanted to be an artist ever since I was a little girl. I don't think most kids grow up and think they can pursue that path, whereas for me I just thought it was normal.”
After high school, Hindin went to Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland.
“That was a tough art school, it's infamously tough,” Hindin said.
She took a break from Elam and did an exchange at the University of Hawai'i.
After graduating with her Honours from Elam and a BA in Māori studies and Media, she worked in TV before she came back to the art world, studying a master's in Hawai'i, where she refined her practice of aute and finished it at Toihoukura, the School of Māori Visual Art & Design in Gisborne.
Today Hindin is reimagining what Māori barkcloth would have looked like if it was still around.
“We have some little pieces of aute in our museum collections but if we did have it today, what would it look like? What would our designs have been? How would we use it in ceremony or life?
“I'm always exploring how to develop Māori visual language within the customary framework.
The paints she uses are harvested from the earth and gathered from Aotearoa to Hawai'i. The red is iron oxide from Kaua'i, the blue and pink are from Te Waipounamu (South Island) and the yellow is from Ōhiwa.
To rediscover and reimage aute, Hindin said it is important her culture is her foundation, and in this case mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) allows her to explore her craft.
“(Māori knowledge) allows you to have freedom, innovation, identity and expression of your culture. If you have a strong cultural grounding you can be a lot freer in knowing who you are and how to express who you are.”
“That has been my personal journey with aute. In the beginning, there was a lot of anxiety about doing something right, and being the only one who has decided to take this path of Māori aute. But as I kept on doing it, and had a really good grounding of the process and the practice, I felt liberated.”
In creating something new, Hindin holds with tradition but does things her own way.
“I can break all the rules, even though it doesn't look like I break any rules, because my lines are so straight.”
Because there are no examples of the patterns painted on aute, Hindin is developing her own using tukutuku and tāniko weaving designs.
The next step is passing on her knowledge.
“Next year I will hopefully have an apprentice working with me full time so I can teach her how to work this practice.”
For Hindin, taking on the responsibility of reviving aute means teaching others.
“When you're Māori working in customary arts or traditional arts, you have an obligation to pass down that knowledge.
“With aute, I may be the first but I'm not the last. Collectively we will decide what Māori aute looks like and what its future is within our culture.
“That's a collective phenomenon. It will just happen.”
Te Aka, the Māori dictionary, lists the word aute as:
1. (noun) paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera — formerly cultivated to make cloth, but now no longer found in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The dictionary may need an update.
