Māori Camera Club (MCC)

The Māori Camera Club (MCC) is a group of Māori photo nerds who want to noho tahi, support each other's practices, and geek out about the importance of photography in te ao Māori. This fundraiser aims to support MCC by covering the cost of a three-day wānanga.

Where: Rehua Marae, Ōtautahi Christchurch

When: Oct. 29th – Nov. 1st, 2026

Invited speakers/photography legends: John Miller and Natalie Robertson

MCC members: Abigail Hau, Aidan Geraghty, Ben Girven, Bri Lawrence, Erena Arapere-Baker, Hendrix Hennessy-Ropiha, Jazmin Tainui Mihi, Keita Newbery, Maija Stephens, Nicholas Ahu Gartner, Renati Waaka, Tiana Krafft-Soffe, Tiffany Te Moananui & Vanessa Green (we'll share member bios and mahi throughout the campaign)

Facilitators: Bridget Reweti and Conor Clarke, with support from James Tapsell-Kururangi 

Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi)

Bridget Reweti is a Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi artist and curator. Her lens-based practice shines light on Māori histories embedded in landscapes through names, narratives and lived experiences. Bridget has held multiple residencies nationally and internationally including Canada, Indonesia and Singapore. She was the 2020/21 Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago which culminated in an exhibition and artist book Pōkai Whenua, Pōkai Moana. 

Bridget is a member of Mataaho Collective, co-founder and current editor of ATE: Journal of Māori Art and co-curated the survey exhibitions Māori Moving Image and Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills, publishing respective books by the same name. In 2023 she received the Leadership Visual Arts Tauranga Moana at Ngā Tohu Toi Award. Bridget holds a Master of Māori Visual Arts with first class honours from Massey University and a PgDip in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies from Victoria University of Wellington.

Conor Clarke (Waitaha, Ngāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu)

Conor is a photographic artist and senior lecturer in photography at Ilam School of Fine Arts Te Kura Kōwaiwai, University of Canterbury. She has held multiple residencies including McCahon House Parehuia Residency (2026), Tylee Cottage Residency (2017-18), and Auckland Regional Council Residency (2015). Her practice interrogates the camera and how it mediates our perception of the non-human world. Recent exhibitions include Eau de Plume at Te Tuhi (2026), Slow Burn Ahi Tāmau: Women and Photography at Te Papa Tongarewa (2026), Site Seeing: Conor Clarke & Bridget Reweti at City Gallery Wellington (2025), Whāia Te Taniwha at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (2025) and Four Rivers: Politics of Water at Studiokino & Civic, Basel Academy of Art & Design, Switzerland (2025).

Conor is actively engaged in the community as a trustee or member of the following collectives and organisations: The Physics Room Charitable Trust, The Hutton’s Shearwater Charitable Trust, Paemanu: Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts, The Māori Womens Welfare League (Rāpaki Branch) and Te Haumi o Mangāmāunu.

This fundraiser will support MCC by providing funds for a three-day wānanga in Ōtautahi. Pūtea raised will cover:

- Travel for members, facilitators, and speakers to and from Ōtautahi

- Accommodation for members, facilitators, and speakers at Rehua Marae

- Speaker fees for photography legends: John Miller and Natalie Robertson 

- Manaakitanga

The 2026 wānanga will bring MCC members together kanohi ki te kanohi, to share mahi, ideas, knowledge and resources. It will create opportunities to learn from one another and experienced practitioners in the field, building a lasting support network for individual, collective, and professional practice, while also fostering a space for general, photo-nerd whanaungatanga.

The Māori Camera Club (MCC) wānanga will take place at Rehua Marae, and will occur alongside the exhibition Māori Camera Club, at The Physics Room.

Wānanga kaupapa:

- What would a national, pā based Māori Camera Club look like?

- How have Māori utilised photography and lens-based media historically?

- Where do early career Māori photographers find support for career development?

- What ideas emerge at the intersection of Māori contemporary visual arts and photography?

- What resources are available to support archival practice? And how/where do archival practices and ideas around digital sovereignty intersect?

- How do we navigate art spaces with our tīkanga and mana intact?

- Who wants more photo nerd whanaungatanga?

Background

The inaugural Māori Camera Club hui was held alongside the exhibition Site Seeing on July 5th 2025; facilitated by City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and held at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. 

This hui was attended by: Abigail Hau, Ben Girven, Bri Lawrence, Hendrix Hennessy-Ropiha, Jazmin Tainui Mihi, Maija Stephens, Mawhero Kenny, Nicholas Ahu Gartner, Renati Waaka, Tessa Russell, Tiana Krafft-Soffe, Tiffany Te Moananui and Vanessa Green.

The hui raised helpful and timely questions about what a Māori Camera Club might look like, what kind of support is (or isn't) available for early-career Māori photographers, and how we might officially form a national Māori Camera Club. These questions will set the tone, as starting points for our 2026 wānanga.

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If you are interested in registering with MCC for future pānui and events, feel free to reach out: conorvonclarks@gmail.com or b.p.reweti@gmail.com

**watch this space**

- Provide opportunity for early-career Māori photographers to whakawhanaungatanga, strengthen networks, and learn from senior practitioners. 

- Histories of indigenous lens-based practices in Aotearoa will be foregrounded

- Opportunity to wānanga across interconnected themes of tāonga, monument, mauri, and mana motuhake, exploring the potentials that emerge when Māori cosmology, Mātauranga Māori, and lens-based imagery meet.

- Provide professional development in cultural heritage and conservation, including appropriate practice when handling photographic taonga in physical and digital form.

- Develop community/whānau resources for photo conservation.

- Officially launch the Māori Camera Club (MCC), including logo, online presence for members, with capacity to grow, amass resources, etc. 

- Help reduce barriers for Māori to experience and participate in the arts.