Kirikiriroa Conversations

It is an opportunity to explore avenues of research or practice that may not have found a place in a lecture or publication. Why not discuss it in a friendly, open, informal environment? The format for presenting is that each conversation will be 15 mins long with 5 mins of questions. These start at 3:30PM in K.G.01. Afterward, come along to MCT's legendary Thirsty Thursdays (BYO) in our foyer (I.4.20) to continue the kōrerō.

First Conversation - 18th July 2024 (3:30PM): Ki te Kapu o Taku Ringa - In the Palm of My Hand, Prof. Tom Roa and Dr. Rodrigo Hill.

This line is from King Tāwhiao’s ‘Maioha mō Waikato’, composed while he and his Waikato brethren were living with their Maniapoto relations at Whatiwhatihoe and other places in Te Nehenehenui. The exhibition is part of our Waikato University research project titled Te Nehenehenui - The Ancient Enduring Beauty in the Great Forest of the King Country, a collaboration between Professor Tom Roa and Dr Rodrigo Hill.

The project focused on photographing wāhi mana (places of significance) such as Maungatautari Mountain Sanctuary, Pirongia, Kāwhia, Ōtorohanga, Te Kūiti, and Mōkau , asserting a decolonising of the lens. Each photograph is informed by wānanga, mana whenua accounts embedded with local Waikato-Maniapoto narratives as a way to reassert and reclaim mana over ancestral knowledge, landmarks, flora, and fauna.

The primary assertion in the book and the exhibition is that the colonial lens is used to tell that story. Our exhibition and photobook celebrates our use of the photographic lens telling our stories in our way ...

Mauri ora ki te whai-ao, ki te ao-mārama.