Sara Tautuku Orme (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Tarawhai, Ngāti Whakaue – Te Arawa) is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based photographer and social documentarian with a background in sociology and kaupapa Māori storytelling. Her work explores whakapapa, Māori identity, mana motuhake, and the enduring impacts of colonisation, often through intimate portraiture and oral histories.

 

Sara has been exploring whanaungatanga through her lens for over two decades. Her work has been exhibited in Aotearoa, Australia, and New York, and is held in public collections such as Waikato Museum.

 

Her most recent kaupapa, Kaumātua, records and preserves the kōrero whaiaro and mātauranga of Māori elders across Aotearoa. Rooted in tikanga and story sovereignty, the work combines large-format photographic portraiture with Māori oral histories.

 

She has exhibited at Te Papa, Caelum Gallery (New York), and Blindside (Melbourne), and in 2025 contributed to He Waka Eke Noa at Tim Melville Gallery. She has twice been recognised by the Contemporary New Zealand Art Awards (2022, 2023), receiving a national award for her photographic work. Her forthcoming book, Kaumātua Aotearoa, will be published by Auckland University Press in 2026.

 

Born in Ōtautahi, with whakapapa to Te Teko and Rotorua, Sara has lived in Tāmaki Makaurau for over 30 years, where she raised her tamariki and now her mokopuna. At home she is known as Sara, but on her marae, Ruaihona, in Te Teko, she is Hera — or, as some affectionately say, “the blonde.”

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Ko Pūtauaki tōku maunga
Ko Rangitāiki tōku awa
Ko Mātaatua tōku waka
Ko Ngāti Awa tōku iwi (Te Arawa, Ngāti Tarawhai, Ngāti Whakaue)
Ko Ngāi Tamaoki tōku hapū
Ko Ruaihona tōku marae
Ko Tautuku whānau
Nō Te Teko ahau (Ōtautahi, Rotorua)
Kei Tāmaki Makaurau tōku kāinga ināianei
Ko Arapeta (Albie) Orme tōku pāpā
Ko Hera / Sara tōku ingoa