Banner: excerpt from Jacob by Mckayla Woodroffe.
Mckayla & Ben
Mckayla Woodroffe and Ben Girven will be tutoring a series of six workshops for rangatahi from Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington schools. Students will make a collective photobook for our Photobook Fair and hold an exhibition at the Kilbirnie Library.
Mckayla
Te Whanganui-a-Tara based Mckayla graduated from Toi Rauwhārangi Massey University Bachelor of Design with Honours and from Victoria University with a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Teaching. She’s been teaching photography at Rongotai College for three years.
Her first photobook is How to Walk with a Baby that explores the experiences of teen mothers in Aotearoa. Her work is based in documentary photography and explores memory and familial connection.
Link for Mckayla
Fast Forward - review by Ann Shelton
Ben (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa)
Ben who was born and raised in Te Whanganui-a-Tara is currently studying for his MFA at Massey, after completing a BDes in Photography and Mātauranga Toi Māori. He’s also worked in youth development, tutoring at the National Scout Photography School, facilitating the Massey High School Student Experience Day for photography and giving artist’s talks.
His photographic art practice and MFA project evokes an unseen view of Ranginui, Papatūānuku, and Te Whānau Marama. He creates on-location photograms, in Wairoa and Te Whanganui-a-Tara whenua, ngahere, awa and moana with the maramataka as his methodology. Existing as a dynamic and living visual repository for mātauranga, his photograms bridge time, space, memory and imagination. Each moment is part of an ongoing kōrero with the ever-changing rhythms of ourselves and the taiao.
Link for Ben
The Post - review by Thomasian Sleigh
Slideshow 1 - Mckayla Woodroffe
Slideshow 2 - Ben Girven
Thanks to Te Matapihi | Central Library and Toi Rauwhārangi Massey University for their support of the schools workshop.