The winner of the 2025 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award Jazmin Tainui Mihi Paget-Knebel with her winning photo Taniwha Chasers. Photo: RNZ/Pokere Paewai
Photographer Jazmin Tainui Mihi Paget-Knebel is showing her community of Ōpōtiki in a positive light by using her camera to document the mana of rangatahi.
The 22-year-old of Te Whānau a Apanui, Whakatōhea, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine descent, won the 2025 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award and a $20,000 cash prize.
Paget-Knebel's work Taniwha Chasers was chosen from 41 finalists with the Award being announced in the presence of the Māori Queen Nga wai hono i te po at Pipitea Marae in Wellington on Wednesday.
She said it was a surreal feeling to win the award and that she was already accomplishing one of her 2025 goals by meeting the Queen.
"I just feel so grateful to be representing my community for such a prestigious award and just carry my whakapapa in this exhibition."
Taniwha Chasers was her first project working in Ōpōtiki and she said getting to go home and shoot it has been her most fulfilling kaupapa.
She focussed on photographing the horse culture that rangatahi (young people) have been practising in the town.
"My cousin helped me gather a bunch of rangatahi and we went out to Hikuwai Beach which is just outside of Ōpōtiki, we had about ten maybe twenty kids on their horses and I was on the back of a ute going a bit too fast down the beach with them running behind us," she said.
Taniwha Chasers winner of the 2025 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award Photo: Supplied/Jazmin Tainui Mihi Paget-Knebel
Paget-Knebel said she can't wait for her cousins back home to tune in to the award ceremony on Wednesday.
"Ōpōtiki doesn't have the best reputation and to be showing my community in this light and bringing positivity and showing the mana of rangatahi and showing how they carry their mana motuhake is so important to be represented in the media and I'm just so grateful that I get to share this story."
Paget-Knebel began taking photographs when she was 12, but became really invested at around 16 when she began to capture Māori practices with her camera.
Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po is known to have a passion for photography as well and even took photos the Kiingitanga's social media pages before her accession as the Māori Monarch.
"I was really nervous about talking to her, so now I have a topic of discussion," Paget-Knebel said.
The Judges of the 2025 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Awards, from left John Walsh, Dr. Areta Wilkinson and Renata Te Wiata. Photo: RNZ/Pokere Paewai
'That's a winner'
The shortlisted artworks were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges, including contemporary Māori artist Dr. Areta Wilkinson (Ngāi Tahu), Head Carver for Waikato-Tainui Renata Te Wiata (Waikato-Ngāti Māhuta, Te Arawa - Ngāti Kea Ngāti Tuara), and leading painter John Walsh (Aitanga a Hauiti).
Walsh said when he first saw Paget-Knebel's photograph his first thought was "that's a winner."
"We all were basically thinking the same things.. it's so youthful and so energetic and hopeful," he said.
Wilkinson said seeing the diversity of vision among the entrants is also important.
"We really enjoyed the diversity of the media, we still look at them as images whether they're two dimensional or three dimensional [or] moving, and just how people are expressing their vision through that medium."
Remembering Kiingi Tuheitia's contribution
The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award was originally set up in collaboration between the Kiingitanga and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery as a competition to encourages young Māori artists to create portraits of their tūpuna (ancestors) in any medium.
Te Wiata said it was a privilege to be involved with awards and he hoped that the memory of the late King is carried on through future Portraiture awards.
"Our Kiingi he was a future thinker, he was a big advocate for the arts and this is just proof of that," he said.
Jaenine Parkinson, the director of the NZ Portrait Gallery said the criteria for this year's awards were changed to reflect who Kiingi Tuheitia wanted the award to be for, that is young artists.
They were saddened by the loss of Kiingi Tuheitia, but she said they are excited to work with the new Queen Nga wai hono i te po, who saw the award as an opportunity to carry on Kiingi Tuheitia's good works into the future.
"So it carries his legacy, his hope and his aspirations for rangatahi Māori and it's meant that we have now an opportunity to work with Kuini Nga wai hono i te po herself and we're so excited to be welcoming her here," she said.
Parkinson encouraged people to come down to the Gallery on Wellington's waterfront to view the portraits 'face to face with the tūpuna'.
The public also has the chance to vote for the People's Choice award that will be chosen at the end of the exhibition.
The exhibition will open at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata at Shed 11 on Wellington's waterfront from Thursday, 22 May to Sunday, 17 August 2025. Entry is free.
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