Te Tuhi Mareikura Trust (TMT) will again bring to Tauranga Moana and the wider Bay of Plenty region its highly successful representation of the world’s best Tā Tatau and Tā Moko indigenous practitioners for one unique cultural event,Toi Kiri: World Indigenous Tattoo Culture 2022. The entire event is held over eleven days from 19 September to 29 September, a gathering of indigenous practitioners of Tā Tatau, Tā Moko (Māori) and cultural arts exponents at Whareroa Marae, Mount Maunganui.
The festival will focus on the development of customary body marking art including the safe and current use of both customary Uhi (hand tapping) and modern tattoo technologies. Over fifty indigenous practitioners of Tā Tatau, Tā Moko and other related cultural arts such as weaving, carving, adornment, clay and ceremony will live-in at Whareroa Marae. The main public festival event will run from 1pm Friday 23 September to 5pm on Sunday 25 September. A ceremonial Māori blessing followed by food will open Toi Kiri: World Indigenous Tattoo Culture 2022. There will be continuous daily tattoo, live performances, food vendors, art and cultural vendors.
Julie Paama-Pengelly, TMT Chairperson, says Toi Kiri 2022 builds in wānanga experience for all the indigenous artists in attendance, broadening the participation of other sectors of the community and cultural groups, and to encourage wider discussions around the ongoing development of indigenous art practices that tend to be undervalued in public art festival settings.
“Toi Kiri provides for unique experiences, enriched culturally authentic interactions and exposure to new knowledge through broad community participation. For the Tauranga Moana and Western Bay of Plenty region, the event provides further economic benefit through the positive marketing and sharing of our region internationally, the promotion of cultural community development, and through the engagement of participation with the wider arts and cultural communities. It opens the door for future exchange of art, through online and physical international exchanges.
We are excited to be able to put together a whole cultural package where the value is in the sharing of actual cultural experiences.”
In previous years, leading artists of indigenous body marking arts have come from Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Philippines, Innuit, Alaska, Canada, America, Taiwan and New Zealand.
“We have a well-established international and national artist network eager to attend the event. The event will see indigenous practitioners from across the globe to share their stories, art form and histories.”
Julie explains that event attendees will experience a unique festival unlike any other.
“Many people don’t appreciate that with the world’s indigenous, we actually share a lot of experiences. Māori have benefited from the fact we were colonised quite late – a lot of these indigenous cultures are more of a minority than we are and have had often edured mass genocide. So it’s interesting that we are the youngest in terms of our colonial history but we’ve been the most vocal about our revival. It has been so strong that other indigenous look to us for inspiration. We all share a common paradigm about the way we see the interconnectedness of ourselves with the land and the spiritual world, which is reflected in our tattoo practice.
By running our own event driven by our desire to develop our people, we can use our unique world view as indigenous peoples to present something really unique which I think people will feel through the experience and that’s the point – that they gain a new appreciation or insight into other people’s worlds.”
The festival has been made possible with the help of funding by Tourism Bay of Plenty, TECT, Creative NZ, Tauranga City Council, and sponsorship by Art Body Creative Studio, After Art and Ngai Te Rangi Iwi.
Julie says TMT were relieved to receive the funding.
“This is our third festival. We’ve run those festivals on the smell of an oily rag, purely on volunteer effort, and this time is the first time we’ve actually gained financial support for it. That funding is truly amazing – we probably wouldn’t have been able to run the festival without that support. It takes so much energy, so much community to do what we do. We place so much value on what we do and
want to do it well, so it was really nice to have the support of our funders and sponsors to support it, to see that our hard work was valued.”
More information about the festival and updates on artists and performers can be found at: www.tetuhimareikura.org/toikiri2022
