Ceramic artist Raewyn Atkinson’s work combines ceramics, film and environmental conservation. E kōrero ana ngā rākau: 'the trees are talking' is a suite of ten photographic still images taken from Atkinson's 52-minute film I Too Am In Paradise II. The film was made in 2019 and documents 30 rare kōwhai ngutu kōrako plants growing in unfired clay urns in the artist’s Wellington garden.

This endangered species of kōwhai ngutu kākā mā or, white kākā beak is a rare albino variant of Clianthus puniceu. It has been brought back from extinction through a collaboration with Scion, Crown Research Forestry Institute, iwi and DOC. Entrusted to Atkinson by East Coast hapu Ngāi Kōhatu (Ngāti Hinehika) these plants are named 'ngutu kōrako' after the ancestress Hinekōrako, a taniwha who lives beneath Te Reinga falls, where these plants once grew. Each urn is incribed with Et in Arcadia Ego (even in paradise, there is death) the title of French baroque artist Nicholas Poussin's 1637-38 painting reflecting on utopia. Atkinson’s images capture the inherent tension between the plants about to bloom and the consequent destruction of the urns.

Raewyn Atkinson (born 1955, Napier) graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Victoria University of Wellington, 1998. Atkinson has exhibited nationally and internationally, with her work held in private and public collections, notably Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, The Los Angeles County Museum, USA, and Shigaraki Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Japan. She has been awarded international residencies and visiting artist experiences in Japan, Australia, Hawai’i and California, USA. Atkinson travelled to Antarctica as an Antarctic Arts Fellow in 2000, returning independently in 2003; was awarded the premier prize in the 2003 and 2015 Portage Ceramics Award and the Juror’s Prize at the 2015 Gyeonggi International Ceramics Biennale, South Korea. Atkinson lives and works in Wellington.