About This Site

Te Kohurau te maunga, Arai Te Uru te tai, Arai te Uru te waka, Poutaiki te pa tawhito, Moeraki te kainga, Aotaumarewa me Hine Matua oku hapu, Kati Mamoe, Ngai Tahu,  Ngati Kahungunu me Celt oku iwi ...   

Tena koe, tena ra koutou! 

 This site documents work in the arts since 1996 that came out of writing health submissions for the well-being of Maori women and children, writing & producing for the national Maori radio broadcaster and current affairs Maori arts journalism. 

After 17 years in Tamaki Makaurau, I returned to Te Waipounamu to be part of NgaI Tahu Settlement with the Crown in 1996 - 1997.    A role as facilitator of contemporary visual & performing arts amongst and with Ngai Tahu practitioners was to support the move of the tribe from grievance of 157 years, into a time of Settlement with the Crown. 

The dynamic renaissance of Ngai Tahu in this period and the role the arts played are a  feature of these pages. This is followed at intervals between 2003 and 2009 delivering arts programmes as a tool to support rehabilitative thinking amongst prisoners in Canterbury Prisons.  That work and exhibitions over a number of years  led to a national award for services to the arts and an opportunity to develop a national prison art strategy for Arts Access Aotearoa and the Department of Corrections (Wellington NZ  2008 - 2012).

Through Arts Access, a relationship was formed with The Learning Connexion in Wellington who were delivering NCES arts programmes to prisons nationally.  Their offer of scholarships between 2010 and 2015 allowed me to work through part of their curriculum, bringing focus to a lifetime of art making and the development of an arts practice.   I completed their curriculum with New Zealand painter & tutor Peter Adsett based in Melbourne. That relationship has influenced work shown  on these pages - Korero Koe, Korero Au &  Wanaka - Learning in the Dark

Other work since  2018, has included research KII ATU AU - MAKU E WHAI (I said I'd follow) the response of tipuna to the gospel of Christ brought to the south by missionaries Watkin, Creed, Wohlers and others from 1840. I've used visual arts as a means of access and additional language. 

Moana Tipa