Concept Overview

Due to launch Matariki 2022, Kanohi Kitea’s installations take the idea of cycles in order to bring cultural narratives to life in the heart of Manukau.

One of the activations in this series is a walkway of 6 zoetropes through Hayman Park, telling segments of The Origin of Fire. As the zoetropes spin they tell a piece of the story through animations that can be viewed through the slats of the zoetrope, delighting the user with it’s simple magic. Each zoetrope on our narrative pathway will illustrate a different scene of the story, allowing the participant to wander through and learn more as they go. The zoetropes will be life-sized, constructed from wood, and handspun. A crank mechanism will allow the user to control their pace, and will also trigger the accompanying sound. Plaques at each zoetrope will detail the contents in Te Reo Māori and English, allowing for deeper understanding of the story being told. We see these zoetropes as being something that can be popped up in any location, and can be flat-packed to enable them to be affordably made and transported.

Kanohi Kitea

Event Concept 11

The second concept involves community participation to create 1000 ropes that will serve as the basis for a projection performance. The process begins with a series of workshops where community members produce ropes, weaving individual threads to form something stronger. These 8.5m tall ropes will be strung up on a steel band creating a 360 screen arena, within which our performance will take place. Due to the volume of ropes required and the evolutionary possibilities for this concept, we foresee the build-up taking several months. The structure could be continually adapted, and could be moved into new neighbourhoods where we would get new community members to add their ropes, thereby tying together different areas in one installation. Timing dependent, the structure would be brought to life in Manukau Civic Square over Matariki 2022 with projections telling the Māori creation story of Papatūānuku and Ranginui. Participants can part the haptic rope screen and enter the large 360 structure where they will be immersed in the visuals and soundscapes of our narrative, experiencing the well-known story in a brand new way.

Based on the feasibility of each concept we’re proposing a two-phase approach, whereby we focus initially on the zoetrope concept and fully explore it’s vast potential, and leave room to implement the second concept at a later stage with a much longer lead-in. The zoetropes can be turned around quickly and adapted to tell any story, and we believe that they will be impactful as a piece of art and a narrative device. We see them forming the basis of a long-term initiative to pop up all over Auckland after their initial stint in Manukau, with the opportunity to get communities directly involved in shaping the stories we tell through them. With that in mind most of our strategy and collateral pertains to the zoetropes as the heart of our project, although both components share a common goal of uplifting the area and motivating the youth to consider possibilities beyond what they may have been exposed to.