Kōrero Toi: Jana Nee

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT

Written by Jana Nee (she/her) | @jahncreates | Contributing Writer

The darkroom in my high school art class was my creative haven. At sixteen, I spent most lunch breaks there, developing negatives from my film camera. I made strange, carefully staged images of fish heads with doll bodies. There were no creative constraints, and I embraced that freedom, experimenting and finding my voice through art photography. I learned to mix chemicals, follow timing, and trust a process that demanded patience. Watching an image slowly appear felt meditative and rewarding. Every print involved trial and error; I loved the attention the work asked of me.

Now, in 2026, I’m still creating, but everything has shifted into an instantaneous digital world. Social media shapes the way I work. As a kaupapa Māori creative, I mostly work in portraiture, images that are seen quickly and scrolled past just as fast. The rhythm is completely different from film. Where photography once asked me to slow down, I now feel the pressure of constant visibility and frequent output. There’s also a sense of oversaturation. Many creators are working within the same kaupapa, documenting and sharing in similar ways. Where I once felt I had a distinct point of view, my work now risks dissolving into a constant stream of images. In that abundance, it becomes harder to recognise the unique essence of my work. 

That feeling pulled me back toward analogue. I began thinking about the way my tūpuna worked with processes that required time, labour, and care. Mahi toi like raranga and whakairo aren’t rushed. The time taken is part of what gives the work meaning and what makes it a taonga. I often return to the pūrākau of Māui slowing the sun, stretching the day so there was enough time for what needed to be done. The idea of time as something you can work with rather than against has been an anchor for my practice. Our people were creating with ngā hua o te taiao (fruits of the environment), drawing from the gifts of the environment. Slowing down my own photography practice and returning to analogue has felt like a reclamation of time.

Without access to a darkroom, I looked for another way to return to hands-on creation. I began making cyanotypes, using sunlight to expose my images and bring them into a physical form. I first came across cyanotype prints through the botanical work of Anna Atkins from 1851, and was drawn to their deep blue tones. Making a cyanotype is deliberately tactile. I mix ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide with water to create a light-sensitive solution, then brush it onto paper by hand. Each surface holds the marks of that process. I prepare my images digitally and print them on transparency film before exposing them to the sun. As they develop, the paper shifts colour, and once washed, a deep blue image emerges. No two prints are the same. It requires me to work with the environment, observe the conditions and time the development process accordingly. 

Some prints fail, and others take multiple attempts. That experimentation is part of the process. Working with cyanotypes has brought me back to something I didn’t realise I had lost. It allows me to move beyond the kind of content creation I have become used to and return to a more open, experimental way of working. I feel more like myself in that space, more in tune with my creativity and expressive in a way that feels authentic.