Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award: Winning photo ‘reclaims narrative' for Māori amid cultural unrest

NZ Herald

22-05-2025

Her photo, part of a series called Taniwha Chasers, was chosen from 41 finalists and was announced in the presence of the Māori Queen, Kuini Ngā Wai hono i te pō, at Pipitea Marae in Wellington on Wednesday night.
'Ōpōtiki hasn't always had the most positive stories told about them to the media and I think it's really important for us Māori digital artists or people who work in this media-type space ... to be reclaiming those stories and reclaiming our narrative and telling them the way we want them to be told, and capturing the beauty of our small towns and our communities,' Paget-Knebel told the Herald.
She said Taniwha Chasers was about representing her community 'and their resilience and us as a people'.
'Really embracing mana motuhake [self-determination, independence and sovereignty] and our strength.'
Paget-Knebel said she wanted to focus on a Māori perspective for her photo.
'Our time is non-linear, so to photograph a rangatahi, it just shows that real deep connection with our tūpuna [ancestors] and to see our tūpuna in them.'
She felt the picture was a 'timely piece with everything that's happening with this Government and the Toitū te Tiriti movement. I think it's a really great symbol of hope for our rangatahi. There's so much power within all aspects of our community.'
Speaking on why she chose to enter that particular picture out of the others in the series, she said: 'There's just something about that photo, eh?
'The rangatahi's expression, it's so pure, and just the movement, this feeling of excitement but complete stillness. Yeah, it just fit the brief for me.'
In her entry to the awards, she wrote that the photo also referred to an intimate connection shared between tangata, hōiho (horses) and their whenua.
'Māori have held a long and historic connection to horses as they were used as a tool to colonise Aotearoa but have since been reclaimed as part of our whakapapa. This image captures the intimate connection rangatahi Māori share with the wild horses of Ōpōtiki and how they are being used to uplift the mana of our community.'
Paget-Knebel was born and raised in Ōmaio, a small coastal town near Ōpōtiki. She began taking photographs at the age of 12, and her interest in photography deepened after attending a five-day National Geographic photo camp in Murupara, where she learned alongside world-renowned photographers.
She moved to Wellington four years ago to study photography at Massey University, and will complete her honours degree this year.
She photographed the 2023 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award and was later invited by the New Zealand Portrait Gallery to photograph the 2025 awards.
Organisers were left scrambling to find a new photographer when Paget-Knebel unexpectedly became the winner of this year's award.
She said she 'kind of just went silent' when she found out she had won. She was most excited to meet the Māori Queen, and said sharing a hongi with her at the awards 'made my entire year and more'.
She was thinking about using some of her winnings to publish a book of her photo series, and was hopeful if there was some left over it could go towards her receiving her moko kauae later this year.
The biennial award was established in 2020 to inspire a new generation of emerging Māori artists to create portraits of their tūpuna.
This year's award attracted portraits using a wide range of mediums, including video, stop-motion puppetry, ceramics with pāua inlay, oil paintings and textiles made from linen, cotton and glass beads.
The judges described the winning photo as uplifting and joyful, and captured 'the heart of our time'.
'It is full of hope and youthful energy, with a fresh perspective on connecting with our tūpuna and te taiao [the natural world]. We are all carried along with this young rider into a future that is increasingly uncertain.
'The young rider, his galloping horse, the raised flag and the brooding land all merge wonderfully to convey this powerful message ... For us judges, it was a unanimous choice. We all read the work the same way.'
The runner-up, who wins $2500, was Maata-Maria Cartisciano from Waitārere Beach for Ekore koe e ngaro i tōku Koro, an acrylic and pencil portrait of her koro.
The exhibition of pictures from the award is at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery on Wellington's waterfront until August 17. Entry is free.