Mahinga ✿ Stories from Te Moana nui e Kiwa

Garden of Stories

Arai Te Uru Hokianga s’gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ Longhouse Thnderbird Blanket Photographer Katz Shotz

“He kai kei aku ringa.”

“There is food at the end of my hands.” Māori saying

Visit the mahinga for stories from Te Moana nui e Kiwa, including Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and other island across Pacific Moana.

Two rivers meet in the gallery: A connection journey - Garland collaborated with Paemanu in sharing their story of the river journey that led to the participation in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial.
How ancestors guide our journeys - Tiffany Singh writes about her installations and performance that draw on spiritual and collective energies.
Common Element: Workshop6 celebrates 30 wild years - Mia Straka recounts the heady journey of a resilient Auckland jewellery collective.
Toro Atua: Sentinels for living well on the land - Inspired by ancestral rock art, Areta Wilkinson's public art installation recognises the Māori spirits that guard whenua.
Mike Crawford ✿ Facing South - Lucy Hammonds recounts her journey to the southern islands with glass artist Mike Crawford and what it revealed of a whenua (land) remote from human control.
Falepipi he Mafola ✿ 30 years of a Niue collective - A handsome tome about Niue demonstrates that the depth of a culture can be far greater than the size of the population. Each island of Moana is its own treasure.
Peter Hawkesby ✿ Building a heart basket - Lucy Hammonds writes about a New Zealand ceramicist whose work is grounded on the land he walks.
Whiria: Twisting together  - Karl Chitham bears witness to intricately woven works by Tyrone Te Waa that honour the Māori tradition of elevating the ancestors.
The sensory archive - Nina Finigan celebrates the grit that accompanies the documentation of potter Barry Brickell.
Stevei Houkāmau ✿ Clay as whakapapa - Zoe Black tracks the journey of Stevei Houkāmau in finding whakapapa connections through ceramics.
Nanamu as Tongan sense of smelling: A tāvāist philosophical critique - Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu, ‘Ōkusitino Māhina, Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai and Tavakefai‘ana, Sēmisi Fetokai Kulīha‘apai Moahehengiovava‘ulahi Potauaine share the profound meaning of smell in Tongan culture. 
Ka rongo au: In response to senses - Rangimarie Sophie Jolley (Waikato-Tainui) and Sian Montgomery-Neutze (Muaūpoko, Ngai Tara) introduce the ways we sense Māori art.
Rēwena bread: A nourishing food with its own whakapapa - Keri-Mei Zagrobelna shares her love of Māori bread and its starter bug that is passed down through generations.
Taste and rongoā Māori: The art of experience - Arihia Latham describes the importance of taste as a life energy in rongoā, Māori medicine.
Neke Moa ✿ How to make deities for everyday use - We interview Neke Moa to learn about being a custodian of pounamu and how she uses it to connect with atua as guiding spirits.
The Last Kai ✿ A Moana renaissance - Our June laurel goes to an epic tapa recreation of da Vinci's Last Supper painting. Tui Emma Gillies shares the journey of its creation.
Samuel Tupou’s Low Resolution Dreamz: Memory in hand-crafted pixels - Miranda Hine finds clarity in the tapa-inspired pixelated versions of precious family photographs.
Tongan designs for a safe pandemic voyage - Angus Gillies writes about traditional Tongan kupesi designs re-interpreted by Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows and Tui Emma Gillies for the COVID era. 
Māreikura: Exploring the goddess in Māori women - Neke Moa, adornment and object artist, describes how she explored the role and importance of wāhine (women) in the spiritual and physical world for her latest solo exhibition.
Navigating craft in Moana Oceania: Crafting Aotearoa to Tok Stori Tuesdays - The third talk in Reinventing the Wheel takes us to Moana Oceania, where Lagi-Maama will help us appreciate the customary context for craft.
Ā Mua ✿ Crafting Aotearoa 2.0 - A dazzling new exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum features objects that look ahead to the past.
Ruth Woodbury ✿ A Māori-Salish encounter featuring salmon and cedar cloaks - The Maori weaver and educator Ruth Woodbury took the Toi Sqwigwialtxw residency run by Washington's Salish community. It revealed an extraordinary Moana connection.
Kamunez ✿ How the kiekie girdles Moana - Mele Tonga Tamanilo celebrates the traditional Tongan waist adornment known as kiekie by inventing new designs and introducing new eye-catching materials.
Nikau Hindin ✿ A star compass that makes history - Ngāpuhi and Te Rarawa artist Nikau Hindin created an installation Kāpehu Whetū, Star Compass at Auckland's Maritime Museum. This work uniquely draws on traditions of navigation across Moana with unfinished business from first encounters with European colonists.
Wanda Gillespie ✿ Abacus - Our January laurel goes to Wanda Gillespie's gorgeous abacus. She takes mathematics on a detour.
Art for whales ✿ A driftwood tribute from Golden Bay - Nicola Basham describes a community project to make sculptures out of driftwood to help in efforts to save beached whales.
The story behind Wellington’s Handshake - Helen Wyatt explores the enduring and successful Handshake project by Peter Deckers
How to make a life out of lei-making: Lauren Shearer - Our attention was caught by the work of Lauren Liana Shearer, who lives in the Hawaiian island of Maui. Our online exhibition of lei-making was limited mostly to artists working in Aotearoa New Zealand. It seemed important here to take our more grounded view of how a floral artist in Hawaii makes a life out of her work.
Warp & Weft – a selection of textile-ish NZ artists - Garland was launched in Ōtautahi Christchurch with the exhibition Warp & Weft, which featured extraordinary textile-related works from artists in Aotearoa New Zealand. We'd like to share a selection of those works with you.
Yuka Oyama: Helpers – Changing homes 🎞️ - Yuka Oyama is producing a series of work "Helpers – Changing homes" in Wellington as part of a residency at Whiti o Rehua School of Art.
Na noqu salusalu: Garlands in Fiji - Tarisi Vundilo describes the meaning of the salusalu, reflecting the power of the maternal aunt (nei)
The mis-education of Moana arts - Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai argues that we need to consider carefully the distinction between fine art and heritage art, particularly when applied to the Pacific Moana.
How to Make a Necklace from a Chair – Sarah Read - One of New Zealand's most interesting jewellers, Sarah Read has created a performance practice which explores the value of labour. In this project, she is stringing the polystyrene beads from a bean bag into an epic necklace form.
Te Moana a nui a Kiwa: A sōlevu - Luisa Tora has curated a sōlevu (gathering) of Moana artists who interpret the lei for here and now.
Pearls for the people in Fiji - Neke Moa writes about the project of Marama Shellcraft to provide livelihood for the people of Ba, Fiji.
Knotting culture: the muka of Rowan Panther - Tryphena Cracknell considers the way Rowan Panther has interpreted the traditional muka fibre within the technique of lace-making.
Tending relations: Lisa Reihana’s lei epic - Tessa Laird takes a serious look at the cliché of the Pacific lei through the work of Lisa Reihana and her own experience as a wedding guest.
I like reality. It doesn’t terrify me. - Kristin D'Agostino seeks to identify a common element behind the surface in Aotearoa artists working with disparate media.
Weaving a koha - Māori weaver Kohai Grace describes how the koha of weaving is a continuous connecting of other generations.
Taurangi - Keri-Mei Zagrobelna writes about Taurangi, her jewellery work that embodies Māori values of honour.
Tears of Tāwhirimātea: carvings by Todd Couper - Karl Chitham reflects on the power of Māori mythology that Todd Couper is able to express in his carvings.
Knot Touch: From greenhouse to gallery - Jaqui Knowles explains the ways in which the NZ Maritime Museum has unraveled the potential of Jae Kang's tomato plant installation.
A visit to TÜR Studio - Jane Groufsky visited weaver Christopher Duncan and designer Joseph Yen in their welcoming TÜR Studio on K Road, Auckland.
What we practise in private - Ioana Gordon-Smith cautions that the state-driven recognition of Pacific Moana culture should not lead to centralisation, but we should seek a plurality of platforms.
Casting shadows: Areta Wilkinson and Mark Adams at the National - Harriet Litten reviews the exhibition by jeweller Areta Wilkinson and photographer Mark Adams that navigate biculturalism through an inventive combination of material and image.
Taonga and Photography in the Post-Treaty Settlement Era: A Case Study of Photograms by Mark Adams and Areta Wilkinson - Damian Skinner writes about the collaboration between jeweller Areta Wilkinson and photographer Mark Adams which use photograms as a way of "capturing" taonga.
My grandmother’s hands: Nina Oberg Alaifea and Stephanie Oberg - Nina Oberg visits the Avon Loop community and discovers the tīvaevae of Alaifea and Stephanie Oberg.
He tupare o ka kupu (a garland of words) 🎧 - Andrew Last reflects on his identity has an Australian manuhiri (guest) in the South Island of Aotearoa and how he has creatively responded to his new home.
Tuhirangi writes on the sky 🎧 - Making the pūtōrino Māori flute channels the wairua and the tapū, the sacred and the forbidden.
Talafungani Vea Garland ✿ Auckland: 9 December 2017 - Come along to launch Garland #9, featuring an online exhibition curated by Luisa Tora. Lots of karakia, garlanding, poems and talanoa.
The lei, the garland and the daisy chain - Fran Allison follows a path towards the Pacific lei via the European garland and doily
Lei in contemporary Pacific cultural practice, by Simone LeAmon - Simone LeAmon NGV Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture travelled through the Pacific nations of New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji in December 2015 to meet artists and identify leis for inclusion in the exhibition Art of the Pacific, a new display from the NGV’s collection of Oceanic art.
A new garland for Fiji - The garland as a symbol of welcome is particularly strong in the Pacific. The role of the broader Pacific community is especially important when someone is devastated by a natural tragedy, as occurred with Cyclone Winston on 14 February 2016. It's natural that we turn to the garland as a source of support at this time. 
The quest for contemporary pacific art - The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2016 reveals a continuing dynamic art scene in the Pacific.

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