Associate Professor Natalie Robertson

Ko Hikurangi te maunga
Ko Waiapu te awa
Ko Ngāti Porou te iwi
Ko Pōhautea te maunga
Ko Takā te awa
Ko Te Whānau a Pōkai te hapū


Hikurangi is the mountain
Waiapu is the river
Ngāti Porou is the tribe
Pōhautea is the sentinel hill
Takā is the stream
Te Whānau a Pōkai is the subtribe


Natalie Robertson (Ngāti Porou, Clann Dhònnchaidh) is a photographer, moving image artist, writer and Associate Professor. in 2022, Natalie graduated with a PhD for doctoral thesis Tātara e maru ana: Renewing ancestral connections with the sacred rain cape of Waiapu Kōkā Hūhua through the University of Auckland. Centring Waiapu—the ancestral river of Ngāti Porou—world-famous for its erosion, Natalie draws on historic archives and tribal oral customs to explore how her lens-based practice can contribute to tribal aspirations for environmental reinvigoration. 

As co-principal of AWA (Artists for Waiapu Action) with Graeme Atkins, Natalie led a creative collaborative team of six to amplify the voice of the Waiapu River through sound and vision in a 35-piece exhibition He Uru Mānuka, He Uru Kānuka (2024) at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial. Curated by Ruth McDougall, this exhibition allowed international audiences to experience the living relationship between Māori knowledge systems and waterway protection, translating the voice of the Waiapu River into a multi-sensory artistic experience that showcased how indigenous stewardship offers vital perspectives on environmental sustainability. https://apps.qagoma.qld.gov.au/awa/

She contributed extensively to the multi-authored book Hei Taonga Mā Ngā Uri Whakatipu – Treasures for the rising generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions 1919-1923 recently published (November 2021) by Te Papa Press, with fellow authors including Wayne Ngata, Monty Soutar, Anne Salmond, Billie Lythberg and Conal McCarthy. Recent exhibitions include Tātara e maru ana — The sacred rain cape of Waiapu at St Paul St Gallery, AUT Auckland 2021, and Adam Art Gallery, Wellington April – June 2022; Toi Tū, Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at Auckland Art Gallery 2020-21; 15th annual Nuit Blanche Toronto 2020; and, To Make /Wrong/ Right/ Now Honolulu Biennial 2019.

Much of Natalie’s research is based in Te Tai Rāwhiti, her East Coast Ngāti Porou homelands, to advance Māori counter-narratives to settler-colonialism. Natalie’s 2012 essay “Can I take a photo of the marae?” - Dynamics of Photography in Te Ao Maori (the Maori world) received widespread international distribution in The Rural: Documents of Contemporary Art (pp. 134-138) published by Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, establishing her significant contribution to the scholarship of Māori and photography. Robertson photographed extensively for the multi-award-winning book A Whakapapa of Tradition: One Hundred Years of Ngāti Porou Carving, 1830–1930, written by Ngarino Ellis (2016) which won The Judith Binney Best First Book Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction in the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. In 2025-26, Natalie was a judge for 

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2026 for the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction with art historian and curator Lauren Gutsell (convenor); with non-fiction writer and former magazine editor Rebekah White.