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Pigments Talk with Lanae Cable
Saturday, May 16 at 12pm Pacific time (convert time zones here)
Kōkōwai: From Birth to Death
“Kōkōwai: From Birth to Death” explores the continued practice of ochre within te ao Māori, centering how kōkōwai binds us intimately to whenua and to one another. Kōkōwai is remembered not as a relic, but as a living ancestral practice that continues to connect us to our tīpuna and landscapes. From creation stories to painted ancestors and everything in between, this talk will reflect the cyclical relationship Māori maintain with kōkōwai across generations and futures.
Emerging from the work of the Kauae Raro Research Collective, this presentation also speaks to a wider movement of remembering Māori knowledge systems and practices. Through research and lived practice, Kauae Raro centres Māori relationships to whenua and ancestral knowledge that continue despite colonial interruption. Kōkōwai becomes more than pigment - it is memory, ceremony, resistance, and connection. An embodiment of the enduring relationships between people and land.
Glossary:
Kōkōwai - Ochre/Ochre paint
Te Ao Māori - Māori world/worldview
Tīpuna - Ancestors
Whenua - Land/placenta
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We record all PRI events except Community Conversations and make them available to PRI members.
You can view more than 50 recordings of past PRI events
in the videos sections of our Resources page.
Lanae Cable is a māmā, researcher, and lecturer of Ngāti Awa, Tūhoe, and Ngāti Pūkeko whakapapa, raised within the lands and waters of her people in Whakatāne. She is a co-founder of the Kauae Raro Research Collective, established in 2019 alongside her whanaunga and friends Sarah Hudson and Jordan Davey-Ems.
Her work centres Māori relationships with the environment, material practices, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Lanae currently lectures in Environmental Studies at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and has worked across a range of projects for her people and the land. Through both research and practice, she is passionate about supporting the remembering and continuation of Māori knowledge.
COMING MAY 23!
AN HOUR IN BED WITH MONA LISA
Sabine working (well, she was really just having waaaaay too much fun to call it work!) in L Cornelissen's incredible pigment archive during the pandemic.
On Saturday, May 23 at 12pm Pacific Daylight time, (convert time zones here) join Mona Lisa herself (aka Sabine, aka @inbedwithmonalisa) and her two fab accomplices, Lucy Mayes from @londonpigment and Evie Hatch aka @evie_hatch on Insta, for a pigmented conversation based on Sabine’s book “Hues in Tubes, everything you have ever wanted to know about PAINT without daring to ask the shop assistant”. (Available for free here.)
An Hour in Bed with Mona Lisa (Mona Lisa for short) and friends will be a sort of book club (in the sense that there is a reading support one can engage with before the session, and prepare questions, if so inclined), but they won’t assume you have actually read the material, and so we will introduce it before opening it to all three for discussion, then to all attendees.
In fact, the book will be more of a springboard: the sections have been picked out as starting points for chatty, lively, loose but information-packed conversations around the issues/questions already outlined in the book.
P.S.: If you want to "prepare" for this one, please read this post
https://inbedwithmonalisa.com/2025/03/15/paint-is-a-concept/
NEW DATE!
Judith's talk has been rescheduled for July 18th.
Due to the date change, new registration is necessary.
The Allure of Nihonga: A Pigment Perspective
In this presentation, Judith Kruger explores the distinctive materials and techniques of Nihonga through the lens of Japanese pigments. Nihonga, (Nihon-Japan, ga-painting), emerged in the late 19th century during the Meiji period as a response to the growing influence of Western-style oil painting (yōga). Rooted in tradition yet shaped by modernization, Nihonga developed into a major movement within modern Japanese art.
Central to this tradition is its highly refined, extensive mineral pigment gradation system. Natural minerals are carefully ground, levigated and micronized into 15 different particle sizes, from coarse crystalline grains to fine powders. These grades determine luminosity, texture, and tonal subtlety, with coarser particles producing darker hues and finer particles yielding softer, lighter hues. Rather than relying on color mixing, Nihonga artists build depth, hue and saturation through precise layering. Transparent animal-glue binders suspend pigments while preserving their natural clarity. More than any other historical pigment painting practice, natural pigments from shell, earth, mineral and plant pigments are selected and finessed for their unique individual and collective material qualities: ultimately contributing to the medium’s restrained beauty and visual complexity. Synthetic Japanese pigments are also available today, featuring colors and effects that are not necessarily found in nature.
pigments talk
Saturday, July 18
12pm Pacific
(convert time zones here)
