We farewell our friend, Selwyn Muru.

Sel­wyn had an enor­mous empa­thy for peo­ple of all walks of life and in all human sit­u­a­tions. Joy and anguish, love and hate, tears and laugh­ter. He had a per­son­al­i­ty with­out reserve and led a life sam­pled in all its para­dox­es. In a 1984 inter­view with Kate­ri­na Mataira, Sel­wyn expressed that “art should cov­er the whole spec­trum of human expe­ri­ence. It should reflect at one extreme the pain and anguish of peo­ple and pur­sue every mood they feel right through to their capac­i­ty for fun and friv­o­li­ty”. He was an artist in all ways, his res­o­nant voice was tuned to waia­ta, whaiko­rero and dra­mat­ic per­for­mance. Musi­cal instru­ments were explored with com­fort­able aban­don, and he com­posed songs, plays and poet­ry. But it was his cre­ative tal­ent in the visu­al arts where he made his strongest state­ments about life. Hone Tuwhare and Sel­wyn Muru were con­tem­po­raries, mates, north­ern rela­tions, hoa aro­ha. One of Selwyn’s well known and loved works is his waharoa in Aotea Square in Tama­ki Makau­rau, which fea­tures one of Hone’s well known and loved Haiku poems. Tuwhare’s Haiku was both a trib­ute to his friend Sel­wyn and a ref­er­ence to the Horotiu awa that once ran through the mid­dle of the city.