During the decade I was living in melbourne these three messages were some of my favourites for obvious reasons. I missed home all of the time. Seeing my parents names were some of the last nudges needed to allow for the realisation that I need to move back to the whenua, to the land that gave me the gift of my life.

ARANEA/ My name is Aranae, mum ‘made it up’, long story short, Aranea is the french word for spider. The day I crossed paths with this book I was on my way to officeworks, on a route that strayed from my norm. I was also in an era of painting frames with a webbing pattern to then sell alongside some prints as an attempt to make a little bit of money during 2020 covid times. Non australian citizens didn’t receive financial aid during this time, rip. I was only able to stay in australia because my god parents housed and fed me for several months, bless them. The story follows a spider, of her life in the big wide world. She makes a home, a storm/life/chaos happens, her web is ruined and she is cast away from the garden. She slowly recovers, makes her way back to the garden and builds another web, another home. This is her work, this is her life and she will go about this dance until her last day.

DONNA & MAREE 35/ Donna and Maree are sisters. Maree gave birth to me who was an accident, 5 years after she had twins with another man. I grew up with Donna and call her mum… Long story short. After several years living in australia one of my twin sisters moved brisbaine. The other twin was planning to visit her and I thought this would be a good opportunity to see them both and reconnect after much time. While I was in brisbaine I was staying with a friend of a friend who one day took me to her favourite banh mi place. When we were on our way home from there I spotted this building out the car window. To see both my mums names during this trip to spend time with my sisters…. yeah kinda wild.

ARIKI/ Ariki is te reo (Māori) for chief and is also my dads name. We have met 5 times, that I’m aware of. I saw this car on sydney road, brunswick, twice in the same place nonetheless. The sticker on the car door says I LOVE MUSIC. So true.