Ngakinga, 2025-2026

Lately I’ve been thinking about how comfortable I’ve become with grieving. Swinging easily from grief to mothering to making. Letting it all coexist softly at the intersection of creativity and embodiment. Living and feeling and holding it all with curiosity. So as I prepare to launch the fourth iteration of the Inhabit Project (4 years of inhabiting!), I’m not at all surprised that this mahi has brought me down into the whenua, where we lay down all the grief and compost it back into love.

As a 2025 exhibiting artist at NorthArt Gallery @northartnz I will be launching Inhabit, Iteration 4; Ngakinga, in April. It’s a year long project creating a community dye garden on a piece of unused land at the heart of the Northcote. In collaboration with Uru Whakaaro @uruwhakaaro the Kaipatiki Project @kaipatiki.project and the local community, we will grow a variety of native and introduced flowers, plants, and vegetables used for natural dyeing and create hand-dyed and sewn banners as public artworks.

The Inhabit Garden will blend art, horticulture, making and community participation into a living installation that transforms a piece of un(under)used land into an interactive and creative space. The garden will be a conduit for community creative expression—inviting all to make, experiment, and collaborate through workshops, performances, and public programming.

As a social sculpture this project emphasises artistic process over product, embracing slow, seasonal rhythms in art-making and growing, reimagining how we inhabit and care for each other and the spaces we share.#inhabit #socialsculpture #nativeplantregeneration #naturaldye #inhabitmaking#motheringassocialpractice #motherhood #motherartist #inhabitproject #socialpractice