Risk: A visual poem by Ruby Solly exploring the intricacies of indigenous, disabled pride

In response to our Deepen* kaupapa, Pelenakeke Brown commissioned poet and taonga puoro practitioner Ruby Solly to create a new poem. Risk, her new work, captured by videographer Julie Zhu explores whakapapa, the medical model for Māori wahine and the journey of trying to become a new parent as a queer, disabled wāhine Māori. Risk is the second work in our series. Watch and read Henrietta Bollinger’s poem Definition.

Video description: Begins with Taonga puoro sounds, sounding like the wind through the trees. Different images and videos of Ruby looking out and directly to us. Footage of her studio, (reminiscent of a wharenui in its ‘A’ shape) and her house.  We see closeups of small details, the light coming through the roof, paintings of ancestors on her wall. Ruby playing taonga puoro, blowing into hue and other instruments. Painting kokowai on her hands, next to her ta moko. Washing this off. Ruby draws the phases of the moon on her blue studio wall, the light looks like they are underwater. Photos of her and her love Dan as they stand in their kitchen. Small details of a moko painted all dark brown. A hei tiki keeps time, tick tock, as it swings side to side. Poem ends with Ruby looking at us defiantly side on saying the last lines of the poem.

Risk

I sit at home while the new nets go fishing
                                   repairing holes in my lining 
                                               before they are worn through
                                                           By the sickness I chose
                                                                       To paint over the one I didn’t

They tell me there is mould underneath this paint
I see it wax and wane under the white
A network of mycelium woven by nannies
who loved us so much that they learnt to keep themselves still
learnt to live in the white forest
Birds and spiders and all, oh my, aue...

These moths - these months - this lunar tick
                                                           Tock tick 
                  - Life expectancy of a Māori woman, 77, 
                  - Life expectancy of a woman with bipolar disorder 76, 75, 74,
                  - Chance of miscarriage with PCOS? 30 to 50%.. Chance of a relapse without baby 
                    curdling lithium within one year? 36%, 35, 34,  POSTSCRIPT, lithium only increases
                    chances of congenital heart defects by 1%, I was just told to give it up, because the
                    idea of a baby, is more important than me
                  -  30, 29... 28, 27 years old, by the time you hear this, I’ll be, 28..

My love and I are turned into numbers on the white page,
you need two people that add up to 1 to make a baby, 
I am a one, the love of my life brings our number to two,
not a match, go fish.

The new nets are going fishing and we scour our whakapapa for te kore, 
 woven through in code
Moko-puna, ourselves reflected in fresh water bursting, oh my, aue
But to sip at that sadness would be to poison myself and others.

What really came first, the beanstalk or the magic beans?
I used to eat one per day, then two, then three 
I’d sit and watch my hair thin, my paint dry
My white scalp glacial beneath
Saw the butterfly that lives in my throat shiver and wane

I hear the music of everything weather i drink from the well or not
The well still drinks from me
Cave curved in the frontal lobe
Where little mouse stores sweat meats and serotonin for  nuclear winter, 
           Oxygenated and un-oxygenated blood
           Racing through my  heart weakened 
                       Battery acid on the tongue
                                   Muzzle  held shut
                                               Woof woof motherfucker
                                                           I can smell my grandmothers spit on your hands

I lie in bed and think of my manic-depressive saints
The woman who filled herself with rabbit pieces
Just to birth them, 
would she have done this if the cameras never came?
Would she have turned their insertion to black and white Film noir, 
purakau turned off and on again at the wall
                         Am I a risk to myself or others?
                         Am I a risk to myself?
                         Am I a risk ?
                         Am I?
                         Are we?

Ah well, another day, another eighty cents of the dollar
Another blood test
Another medication compliance phone call
Another woman calling my qualifications a symptom of mania
Lies
Because a Māori woman is more likely to be insane
Than a doctor in their eyes
Being a tohunga is out of the question
Suppressed, e Hine
                                    Suppressed

Creative Team 

Words: Ruby Solly 

Featuring: Ruby Solly, Daniela Butterfield

Curator/Producer: Pelenakeke Brown

Camera/edit: Julie Zhu

Sound: Lachlan Crane

Music: Ruby Solly

Project Coordinator: Beth Awatere 

Made possible by support from The D*List and Auckland Pride