Year 12 and 13 students of Te Mahi-a-Toi Academy have entered pieces of their mahi(work) into an Art Expo (Ringa Toi Expo) in Wellington, run by NZQA.

The Ringa Toi Expo runs from the 18th to the 21st of September.

We are using a model marae that the students have been working on that measures 2m in length x 75cm in width x 60cm in height and a scale of 1:17. It is a collaboration of all the students’ mahi put into one piece of artwork.

The marae is set up as a timeline on how Maori art was, to what Maori art is now through the students’ eyes. It is the focus of how the academy works at taking our taonga tuku iho (Treasures of the past) and contextualizing it into how they would tell a story using the technology of today.

The marae is made up of different elements of Mahi-a-Toi such as Whakairo(carving), Kowhaiwhai made from vinal, tukutuku made from the students’ digital prints from Unitec and many more.

A big thank you goes to the leading teachers in this project Matua Mark Thompson and Papa Jack Brooking for letting our students be part of such an amazing process.