Almost 50 years have passed since the historic 1975 Māori Land March, and mokopuna of Dame Whina Cooper are marking the occasion with a new art exhibition that honours her legacy.

Exodus: Through the Doors of Time is a multi-generational and international exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of Te Hīkoi. The march saw thousands walk from Te Hāpua in the North to Parliament, led by Dame Whina in a stand for Māori land rights.

Lead curator and mokopuna of Dame Whina Cooper, Janelle Murphy, felt proud as the exhibition opened to the public this week in Tāmaki Makaurau.

“Ko tēnei te wā ka hāpaitia ngā mokopuna o te kuia ki tōna kaupapa,” she says.

“A lot of what we have here in the exhibition teaches people about our whānau, so a lot of the work that she did in her younger years.”

Opening on 21 August 2025 in Ponsonby, Exodus features nine indigenous artists from Aotearoa, Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, Turtle Island (North America) and Alaska. Together, they tell a story of whakapapa, wairua and whānau through seven symbolic doors and one mokopuna cloak. Each piece represents a stage of life.

“This exhibition stands on the shoulders of our ancestors,” says curator Natasha Hanisi.

“Dame Whina laid the path; we extend it through art, spirit, collective memory and technology.”

The showcase presents the hīkoi through canvases, carvings, photographs and cloaks.

He kaupapa iwi taketake

Exodus is the first time Dame Whina’s legacy has been honoured through a global indigenous art exhibition.

“Exodus is both Māori at its heart and universal in its call to remember, to witness, and to carry forward,” says Hawaiian artist Solomon Enos.

Murphy says there are many themes and issues that resonate across indigenous people.

“Land loss, language loss, even genocide and it’s still happening today. So we automatically connect through those traumas and through those histories.”

Toa Sieke Taihia (Niue) is one of the ringatoi and was also part of the Hīkoi 50 years ago.

“We went on that march as Polynesian Panthers. I could see the significance with Moana Pasifika - the same struggle, the same land issues.”

Auckland-based ringatoi and tā moko artist Xander Kavanagh, of Ngāpuhi and Hāmoa, transformed a weathered door into a spiritual portal, honouring World War II soldiers and ancestral resilience.

“We were tasked with creating a door. It’s an old state-house door from the 1940s,” he adds.

“For me, it kind of represents like the final door that they would’ve seen, and so it was that kind of state-house generation, but also being sent to war.”

The group of artists came together in February 2024 for a wānanga in Tāmaki Makaurau, where they shared whakaaro in the leadup to this year’s exhibition. Kavanagh says the door took him over a year to complete.

Taihia brought his memories and vision to life through a doorway into the boomer generation. Sanding down six layers of paint on a door he says is over a century old, he says the kahikatea door has whakapapa that speaks deeply to the theme of the exhibition.

On the door are newspaper clippings featuring many notable names and photos that helped guide him.

“Judge Mick Brown, Rev Hone Kaa, Bill Andersen, Anne Tia – they were my advocates back then. [I] don’t hear many stories about them these days.”

Kavanagh explains, “There’s that old adage of like a pic paints a thousand words. I think that mahi toi extends far beyond this type of artwork.”

But for Murphy, she continues to pay homage and walk this journey through the expression of art.

“I think for us today, art is a new way for us to protest. It’s a way to show our stories and also our histories in a different way. The legacy that Nanny leaves behind is that she wants all of her mokopuna to thrive in whatever field they choose.”

Exodus is open to the public at Studio One Toi Tū, Ponsonby until September 16.