Team visit to Wairau (April 2021). Left to right: Darren Ngaru King (Ngāti Raukawa),
Israel Birch (Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tawake ki te Waoku, Ngā Puhi),
Peter Meihana (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne, Ngāti Apa, Ngāi Tahu).
Te Rūnanga a Rangitāne o Wairau Trust have secured funding from the inaugural Ākina Te Tū – Kaupapa Māori Resilience funding round. The fund is for supporting Māori researchers, enhancing Mātauranga Māori implementation into research, and enabling tangata whenua engagement within projects that are already underway in the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge: www.resiliencechallenge.nz.
In the work ahead, we propose to use art and design to bring together kōrero tuku iho with geological evidence to reclaim and reimagine our history surrounding ancestral experience with past tsunami(s) at Te Pokohiwi-o-Kupe and Mataora-Wairau Lagoon. We consider that experience(s) of extreme events, and more specifically past tsunamis recorded through our oral histories, are a powerful medium for demonstrating precedents and supporting understanding and acceptance of risk. The designs and artworks created through the project will be gifted to Rangitāne ki Wairau and showcased through a curated exhibition held at Rangitāne House. The proposed work will also contribute to a number of projects currently being undertaken by Te Rūnanga a Rangitāne o Wairau Trust and the Rangitāne o Wairau Settlement Trust by adding to our existing stores of socio-cultural knowledge and history. The project team comprises: Corey Hebberd (Rangitāne),Israel Birch (Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tawake ki te Waoku, Ngā Puhi), Peter Meihana (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne, Ngāti Apa, Ngāi Tahu) and Darren Ngaru King (Ngāti Raukawa).
Noho ake rā i ngā manaakitanga nui o te runga rawa.
