Description:

Te Ao o Arawa is a publication dedicated to preserving and uplifting pūrākau (ancestral narratives) from Te Arawa iwi. These stories, often reduced to simplified myths, are repositioned as living, layered narratives that shape identity and the whenua they emerge from.

The project was sparked by a family archive from Maketū, where printed stories, whakapapa charts, and iwi documents were carefully collected and shared across generations. This collection became the foundation for a design-led taonga that honours and continues the transmission of mātauranga Māori.

Structured across a main book, glossary booklet, and fold-out whakapapa poster, the design draws on Māori worldviews such as ka mua, ka muri (walking backwards into the future) and the porowhita (circle), symbolising the interconnectedness of time, people, and place. Circular motifs and soft pink tones reinterpret traditional symbolism, red as a marker of whakapapa and sacredness, through a contemporary lens.

Taonga sourced from the British Museum’s archives are woven throughout, acknowledging the historical displacement of Māori knowledge and reasserting these objects within a Te Arawa-led narrative. Each artifact was selected with care, strengthening the stories through visual reconnection to whakapapa.
Readers are invited to physically interact with the work, laying out the posters and using the glossary alongside the text to deepen engagement with te reo and cultural knowledge, exploring the design’s layered form.

Te Ao o Arawa serves as an act of cultural reclamation, a reminder of the depth, power, and beauty held within Māori storytelling when told through an indigenous lens.