Description:

For Tāngata Whenua here in Aotearoa, New Zealand – painful reminders of colonisation are everywhere.

With the media frenzy around the coronation of King Charles, that reminder was set to be louder than ever before. That's why Indigenous artist collective Kōpū o Te Rangi  found a way to turn the Crown's PR machine against itself.

Introducing Pīkari Mai, the plug-in that unplugs the royals.

Pīkari mai is a browser plug-in that automatically scans news web pages for images or key words about the royal family and replaces it with local and indigenous news.

We tapped into a network of Māori media and used the plug-in to swap out every piece of royal news with articles from Indigenous journalists.

The more royal gossip the media peddled, the more Māori voices were elevated.

The goal of Pīkari Mai was to honour the work of Māori & indigenous journalists.

One way that we articulate coming together both in cultural practice & Te Reo Māori is through “he whakawhārihikia” the making or presenting of a new woven mat that symbolises a place for everyone to meet, gather and stand upon.

This inspired us to look within Taki Tahi weaving methodologies. The simple grid found in takitahi informed our digital woven patterns, which we used to devise a unique type face in both Te Reo Māori and English.

To build out our pixel illustrations & āhuatanga, we drew from the way takitahi replicates a two-dimensional square stitch, creating new designs inspired by waharua kopito tāniko and tukutuku.

Pīkarimai.com weaponised the world’s biggest PR machine to turn every mouthpiece for royal gossip into an outlet for Indigenous news.

It eventually took a life of it’s own, and our Indigenous relatives from around the world started sharing the plug-in, asking us to highlight stories from their communities too.

So we did.

In less that 48 hours we reached over 23 million people without spending a cent.