In addition to the obvious examination of the cultural specificities of food, He Waiata Whaiaipo is a love song in moving image employing the act of eating as a metaphor to play out ideas about desire, pursuit and fulfilment. A solitary and self-contained figure, eats at the table of Tangaroa (the god of the sea) in a dark world which is at once sensuous and forbidding - evoking narratives of Narcissus, Maui and Hine nui Te Po. Water has been a prominent feature of Rakena's work and it surfaces again here poetically providing an amniotic medium for love and culture.

Rachael Rakena, who has a Master of Fine Arts (Distinction) and is a lecturer at Toioho ki Apiti, School of Maori Studies, Massey University, has coined the term Toi Rerehiko as a means of describing and locating her practice. Toi Rerehiko, which plays on rorohiko the Maori word for computer, is a digital media art form immersed in Maori tikanga (customs) and values.