Te Ara Kanohi

An established poet of both page and stage, Serie Barford is a longtime friend of Going West and deeply connected to West Auckland and in particular the beach at Te Henga. She has been a guest of the Going West Festival multiple times, including the 1996 performance captured in this podcast.

Barford draws on her Pasifika and Pakeha heritage to create deeply intimate, richly emotional and culturally layered poetry. The title of her poem Te Ara Kanohi translates as The Pathway of the Eye.

In it she explores the emotional terrain of her lost partnership with her tragically deceased lover, in the geographical context of the west Auckland beaches and forests they explored together. 

Filmed by Anna Marbrook, this is a nuanced and powerful emotional discourse by one of New Zealand’s strongest poets at the top of their game. 

Marbrook has produced and directed a wide range of documentary works for large and small screens. She draws on her previous career in theatre to develop powerfully inventive documentary narratives, and is renowned for closely observed emotional nuance and power. 

In recent years has worked heavily with Pasifika communities, including the much-celebrated Loimata (2020), about the Samoan navigator Ema Siope’s final weeks, and the family trauma she and her siblings encountered.

Serie Barford (left), Anna Marbrook (Right)

Credits:
Poem: Te Ara Kanohi, Pathway of the Eye by Serie Barford
Director: Anna Marbrook
Producer: Anna Marbrook
Executive Producer: James Littlewood
Cinematographer: Jess Charlton
Editor: Malcolm Clark
Composer: François Marbrook
Performers:
Serie Barford
James Littlewood
Sioux

Filmed entirely on location at Te Henga. The Filmmakers acknowledge the original inhabitants of Te Henga Te Kawerau ā Maki

Thanks to the wonderful community at Te Henga for supporting the making of this film. In particular: the Wheeler whanau, the Roberts family, the Hooker Family Trust. Special thanks to: Heather Lee, Simon & Jim Wheeler, Anna Saunders, The Marbrook Plourde family

Commissioned by Going West Writers Festival with the support of Waitākere Ranges Local Board, Auckland Council and Creative New Zealand