Māori creative Libby Hakaraia set up the Māoriland Hub in Ōtaki to showcase indigenous film, art, technology and stories. This includes a new art exhibition that opens today at its Toi Gallery.
Te Kāhui o Matariki features both emerging and established artists who created work during lockdown and is a tribute to clay artists Colleen Waata Urlich and Manos Nathan.
Libby explains, "We decided to base our first exhibition [post lockdown] for Matariki. We reached out to the likes of Tā Derek Lardelli, Roia Toi - lots and lots of artists. So we said 'look, we're doing this and we would like to honour not only Colleen but also Manos.' So we put that out there and ever since we've been 3 weeks into Level 2 we've just been receiving all these beautiful works.
"A lot of the artists have created the works to support the exhibition so here we are at the Māoriland Hub surrounded by the most incredible artworks."