RĀTAKA

Recent updates

Find out what's been happening on Te Kinkinakina Wetlands since the end of this project ​by going to the Māori Girls website or following Dr James Berghan and his projects at Urbandigenous!.

Maori Girls website

Urbandigenous! website

2023

Te KinaKina - inclusive design

Kathleen and Violet are working with Dr James Berghan and students Oscar McConaughy, Ben Siesicki and Matt Lloyd from the School of Architecture, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University Wellington to ensure that Te Kinakina is accessible. Their work, including their engagement with community and advisors at a KAI and Kōrero event, was profiled by reporter Sven Carlsson on page 5 of the 21 December 2023 edition of the Ōpōtiki News.

Read the Article

Sven also produced a short clip, where the team introduce themselves and talk about the work they are doing. This can be found on his Facebook page.

Watch the Video

Housing Wānanga, Pahaoa Pā marae, te Kaha, September 2023

A research project Kathleen and Violet are doing with Dr James Berghan, funded by BRANZ, included a second housing wānanga at Pahaoa Pā Marae in Te Kaha. The first housing hui in January 2023 had stimulated a lot of interest in climate resilient housing and this second hui focused on how people wanted to live, the type of housing they aspired to have, and how they could get 'off the grid' by thinking about passive housing.

Read the two reports from this work on the BRANZ website. The downloadable report contains both Ka Mua, Ka Muri and Resilient.

KA MUA, KA MURI outlines our research on designing Māori housing and kāinga that enable Māori to be well-housed and at home on their whenua. Drawing from existing literature, we focused specifically on how whare and kāinga can be designed with the impacts of climate change in mind.

RESILIENT is a workbook for starting conversations about climate-resilient housing.

Permission granted for conference presentations on Te Kinakina Wetlands

While Kathleen and Violet were unable to join us at ​the 13th International Conference on the Constructed Environment, University of Hawaii, Manoa, 17-18 May 2023, they gave their permission for Te Kinakina wetlands to be spoken about. The also allowed this to happen at the Emancipatory Research Symposium at Xavier University in July 2023. Their slides are below.

Te Kinakina wetlands - offical opening, April 2023

At the start of her journey with Poipoia te kākano, kia puāwai, Kathleen committed herself to an exhibition as a research output. On the 15 April, 2023, her exhibition of seven POU Kaitiaki - two carved in wood (Papatūānuku and Tāne Mahuta) and five (Tūmatauenga, Tawhirimatea, Tangaroa, Rongo, and Haumia) shaped from 90mm steel pipe - was unveiled as part of the Te Kinakina Wetlands offical opening. These POU are a manifestation of Kathleen’s MFA exegesis 'bones invoking memories' and stories that speak to her family’s struggle to gain safe access to their ancestral lands. They are silent sentinels. 

​He Pākē

Kathleen’s cousin, Pauline Carlson recently came to visit us bearing a koha, a beautiful pākē (cloak) she has woven for one of the Pou Atua. This led to a two-day Pākē wānanga being held, facilitated by Pauline and supported by funding assistance from REAP (Rural Educational Activities Programme). In the invitation to the wānanga, Violet wrote, "In the process of learning to harvest, prepare, weave and dye korowai, we will be working together in a culturally appropriate space, an indigenous whenua-based landscape. We will be learning through doing a host activity embedded in mātauranga rāranga."

2022

building Te Kinakina Wetlands fence   

Kia ora Bay Trust, for your contribution of $50,000 towards our deer fence.The erection of this fence is crucial, for once the fence is up, we can begin to plant, and to make and set traps, and eventually start a kiwi breeding programme here. 

We have made a cultural commitment to growing traditional weaving and carving materials so that local Marae can be maintained; and traditional artists will have the materials they need to provide ‘host activities’ that invoke and affirm Mātauranga Maori. The Ōpōtiki News published an article about this kaupapa in August 2022.

Birdie

22 January 2022

In the early hours of the morning our Cat Venus Williams brought this baby thrush inside.  We released ‘Birdie’ on the 25 February but she came home next day. She flew out of her cage on the 7 March, and came home again On the 9th. Mama Kathleen is building Birdie her own kainga rua.

Operational Plan

February 2022

Our 3-year Operational Plan ready to share, serving as supporting documentation for future funding applications. Thank you Lisa Pohatu & to you Dr Fiona Cram

Exhibition sketches

Sketches in Kathleen's Art Diary give early insights into the exhibition that will be her research output.

2021

December - a sharp reminder of Climate change

We watched and waited, in fear and trepidation, as Pakuranui Stream turned into a raging river, rising then spilling over her banks, to race relentlessly towards our swollen ponds.  The ponds did not burst, and a sharp reminder that we now live amid climate change and all that that brings with it.  Fence lines must be now move to higher ground.  What innovative fencing designs will traverse water ways like this? The impacts of the flooding were still being seen in the wetlands in January and February of the following year, as seen in the pictures below.

May - Planting Harakeke

At the start of May 2021, community members and researchers joined Kathleen and Violet to plant harakeke (flax) that had been gifted to the wetlands. Our morning together included a welcome to the wetlands and a blessing, and Ruka shared her mātauranga with us about the harakeke, which is a species that is harvested to make puipui.

HARAKEKE Planting video

March - Excavation work

Sven Carlsson wrote an article, Wetlands refuge under construction, for the Ōpōtiki News, 25 March 2021

Ōpōtiki News - go to page 5

Before we could start creating ponds, we needed to clear the water ways and surrounding areas of weeds – couch, pampas, blackberry, ginger. Gordon Collier spent 3 weeks creating four main ponds and waterways to distribute and manage the water levels.

2020

October - FELLING PINE TREES

A team of three, led by Noel Galloway, arrived on Friday morning, 2 October 2020, ready to start cutting down the pine trees. More that 25 pine trees were felled in order to address the threat of wilding pines growing in the Wetlands area. More than 30 tree trunks, pines and willows were fed into Anderson’s largest chipper providing mounds of precious mulch.   ​

May - Regenerative Planting

A cocktail of 13 seeds sown to regenerate the soil, crucial after maize cropping had taken its toll on the soil.

Sharing the Plan

Stage 1, 2020 involved the development of a Wetlands Plan to share with whānau and others, to engage them in the kaupapa (project) and to serve as a supporting document for funding applications. This plan, entitled ‘Ko te Kaupapa me te Matakite mō Te Kinakina (Te Kaha 2C2)’ was shared with whānau (shareholders) in 2020. The restoration of the wetlands is at the centre of a plan enfused with principles drawn from te Ao Māori (the Māori world), including kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). This plan is a living document and has been revised and expanded many time since its initial drafting (for example, to include the establishment of a nursery).

The Plan

Kathleen's initial ideas for planting in the wetlands.