Carving honours Cook Islands stories and women’s strength: Tui Hobson
13 Nov 2025, Rachel Healy
This article first appeared in The Post on 13 November 2025
This article first appeared in The Post on 13 November 2025
When Tui Hobson was growing up, she’d spend hours watching her father crafting with wood, from furniture to sculpted birds, boats and abstract forms, “He could do anything”, says Tui, who would walk to her Dad’s Newtown joinery factory after school. He’d often make something for her too: a bow and arrow, a cricket bat, even a skateboard. 45-years later, Tui is one of only a handful of women who carve, and she is a full-time artist based in Auckland. Tui’s just been back in Wellington as the 2025 Aniva Artist in Residence, a partnership between Pātaka Art+Museum and Creative New Zealand. The result is her recently unveiled pou, Vairaka.
Tui’s carved pou, Vairaka, was initially called Wairaka, a tribute to revered ancestral figure who travelled from Ma’uke, the most easterly of the Cook Islands, to Aotearoa and saved women and children on board a drifting waka. For women at that time, touching a paddle was considered tapu, but, as the story goes, Wairaka seized the paddle and called to her ancestors, “Kia Whakatāne ake au i ahu!” (Let me act like a man!). Tui heard about Wairaka from these narratives and the many tributes and landmarks to her throughout the country. It was only this year, however, that Tui learnt of the Cook Island’s version: Vairaka. While doing research for her pou at Te Papa, collections manager Mama Grace Hutton told Tui, “It’s not Wairaka, it’s Vairaka … we didn’t have paddles on our canoes, we had sails”.
Tui has since discovered many more Cook Island stories of Vairaka, particularly from Auckland educator and archaeologist, Ma’ara Maeava, who generously spoke at the Pātaka launch of Vairaka last month.
Vairaka is the first contemporary carving created by a woman to be shown at Pātaka: “Worldwide, women carvers are so rare and, significantly, Tui was among the first Aotearoa Cook Islands women to take up the chisel and the chainsaw in Aotearoa,” says Marilyn Kohlhase, curator and advocate for Pacific arts. Tui hopes she will no longer be such a rarity and is hugely excited about the development of a women-led space for female carvers to meet regularly and learn from each other, Te Ana o Hine at Te Tuhi in Auckland.
At Pātaka, Vairaka stands over three metres tall. Tui laughs that she had no choice in the matter of scale – working with a locally felled macrocarpa that was dropped off to her by Lydia Mihaka, Porirua City Council’s Arboriculture Manager, aided by contractors Treescape.
Tui describes her work as a melting pot of gifts from both her parents: her father, who bequeathed Tui his tools, and her mother, whose Cook Island identity Tui says is now her own, “Being brought up by my father, I had his skills and love of abstract carving, but I was removed from my culture for a while. It wasn’t until Dad left me his chisels that I started doing what really interested me. I looked into my Cook Islands’ background and I was drawn to migration, hooks, sails, drums and fish. My work unfolded from there, and my interest just keeps evolving”.
Tui first visited the Cook Islands nearly thirty years ago and has since been back there every couple of years. Her aunt, Lynnsay Rongokea, wrote the book The Art of Tivaevae, her grandmother, Mary Rongokea, was a cutter and sewer of tīvaevae and her mother, Malina Cleary, was a talented textile artist. “All the women were strong and creative,” Tui says. Other influences include master carver and knowledge-holder Awhitia Tavioni, who Tui first met in 2004 and continues to inspire her. “Mama Awhita has stuck to it, no matter what,” says Tui.
And that’s exactly what Tui intends to do too.
Vairaka is on display in the atrium at Pātaka Art+Museum, free entry, www.pataka.org.nz
