In response to the threat of kauri dieback, mana whenua Te Kawerau ā Maki have issued a rāhui (ritual prohibition) over the Waitākere Ranges. Respect the rāhui is a text-based work by Robyn Maree Pickens that attempts to listen to, and support this closure through reiteration of the rāhui.
Each billboard will present one word of the prohibition: Respect | the | rāhui. The work acknowledges Mary-Louise Browne’s 2010 Te Tuhi billboard work Golden by forming the words from one of Browne’s inkjet prints of kauri gum. This iterative use of Browne’s work acknowledges a historical and conceptual precedent, and signals the spatial and temporal distance between the work and the kauri trees under rāhui.