The latest exhibition in Wellington’s Courtenay Place light boxes connects the current urban Courtenay Place environment with its Te Aro Pā past.

“How do we protect and enhance the mauri within an urban environment?” asks Te Whanganui-a-Tara based Māori indigenous artist Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka in her outdoor exhibition Whakapapa Te Pō Te Ao.

Running for Matariki 2022 until 18 September, Whakapapa Te Pō Te Ao turns the light boxes into a series of digitally woven pouwhenua which are derived from the natural Te Aro and the local environment.

The exhibition acknowledges the whenua (land) and awa (streams) above and below the city streets.

“Past, present, and future coexist within the whenua,” says Tanya. “Our tūpuna (ancestors) hold our collective memory, the good and the bad, the light and the dark. We are alive because of them, by acknowledging this truth we enhance the mauri (life-force), and we build our relationships with the natural world even within an urban environment.”

Whakapapa Te Pō Te Ao responds to Matariki as a time to recount the past seasons and set new plans for the coming year.

Guided by the Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, Tanya filmed the area surrounding the light boxes once a month during 2021.

Her key consideration was how we experience the three major awa sources – the Waitangi, Kūmutoto, and Waimapihi streams that were once a source of kai and are now below the city streets.

She translated her video imagery into digital weavings for the light boxes. One side of the light boxes image references Te Whakapapa o Te Pō and the other, Te Whakapapa o Te Ao. Together, the whakapapa of light and dark capture a story of time unfolding in Courtenay Place from a kaupapa Māori perspective.

Tanya’s light boxes mahi is interwoven with a number of her other projects.

The Community Rongoā (Māori medicinal) Forest, based in Elliott Park, Brooklyn, is a concept she developed last year.

Rongoā leaves were used in the project ‘The Forest Rongoā Teahouse’, where she served traditional Māori medicinaltea amidst photographic and video artworks in a temporary space along Courtenay Place.

Tea leaves for the tea that will be served at the blessing and opening of her Courtenay Place light boxes exhibition, on Saturday 28 May at 2pm, will also come from the forest.

Tanya, with Ollie Hutton from Mouthful, has also been commissioned by Urban Dream Brokerage to curateeight independent moving artworks screening across eight weeks of winter, named Te wāhi o te papa whakāta. This work will be displayed across from the light boxes, in the window of 106 Courtenay Place during June and August.

Visit the Courtenay Place light boxes on the corner of Courtenay Place and Taranaki Street, day or night, and check out Council’s Facebook page next week for a chance to win a fine art limited print of one of Tanya’s works.

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