Iteration 4; Ngakinga
Papa ki Awataha
Tāmaki Makaurau,
2025/2026
Ngakinga, the fourth iteration of Inhabit will be activated at Papa ki Awataha, Northcote from March 2025 to April 2026. . This project is in collaboration with Uru Whakaaro and is supported by The Tīpuna Project, Auckland City Council Creative Communities Scheme, NORTHART and the Kaipātiki Project.
I am collaborating with Charmaine Bailie (Te Uri o Hau – Ngati Whatua ki Kaipara) to grow a natural dye garden on a 200 sq meter piece of land at Papa ki Awataha. This is the home of the puna that feeds Te Awataha. The land is bare, raw, hard and cracked, waiting to be nurtured back to its full potential. We will inhabit here for four seasons, nourishing the whenua intentionally along its journey to good health and growing natural dye plants to create hand dyed fabric artworks with the community.
Ngakinga is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and native and non-native plants to co-create public art, ritual and other care practices that weave together our diverse ancestral threads while respecting Māori sovereignty, in honor ultimately of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
As a social sculpture, this intentionally cultivated space will grow plants and flowers selected for their natural dyeing properties to create textile arts.
We acknowledge Mana Whenua as the kaitaiki of this land, and their tīpuna past, present, and emerging.
Ngakinga Participation Schedule
Winter hours:
Every Wednesday morning 10:30-12:30pm - Drop in for a chat and help us with some mahi
First Sunday of the month 10:30 -12:30pm- we will be on the land, caring for it and holding workshops. Workshop details and additional days will be announced on instagram @hollimcentegart.studio on this website and on the notice board at Ngakinga as it unfolds.
Next Sunday in the garden is: - June 8th
We are inviting folks to join us in building community around this land. To help us care for it softly and radically, with creativity and interconnectedness. Across four seasons. It will be a place to share personal stories and collective reflection with our feet in the soil and our faces in the flowers. A place to make art with natural dye plants through a lens of decolonisation and ecosystem regeneration, addressing the importance of sustainable practices and connection to the whenua while the Northcote town center is under redevelopment.
