Storybox Christchurch | Future Gateway: Mo Tatou

Christchurch Arts Festival, Catherdral Square

For the festival a Storybox was developed with Ng?i Tahu. The result was a site-specific double-stranded celebration of the iwi: ‘Future Gateway: Mo Tatou’ and ‘Past: Recalling Puari’.

The Storybox was presented in two paired stacked gateways of containers facing each other in Cathedral Square alongside the Christchurch Cathedral. Stacked 3 high each paired stack contained 4 projection screens and a sound system and played each night between 6pm and 10pm.

The results were outstanding and exceeded the brief of placing Ngai Tahu stories in a leading position within the CAF WinterGarden. The Festival has estimated 7,200 people actively viewed these works over the 18 days of the CAF 2009.

Future Gateway: Mo Tatou

For this 4 screen documentary work, we wanted to look forward through the eyes of eight people from Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu who live in and around Christchurch. What they see is presented as a collage of woven statements about past and present experiences from contemporary M?ori society.

These statements and observations relate to our current social climate and landscape from a distinctly Ngai Tahu perspective with a leaning towards thoughts on the future for Ngai Tahu whanau and the wider communities of Canterbury.

Four young people aged 7 to 12 and four elders aged 75 to 87 shared their thoughts, fears and hopes for the future of whanau (family), of technology, of te reo (M?ori language), of environment, of Ngai Tahu, of our country and of our world.