Future exhibit #1: WOVEN HARAKEKE (flax) STAR
This is a harakeke whetū - a woven flax star - a gift and decoration from the celebrations of Puanga, the Māori New Year celebration in Taranaki, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Encoded in the weave is a practice of working with harakeke that stretches across the Pacific islands. Woven mats for example were forms of ancient currency in some Pacific communities: crafted alternatives to consumerist and profit-driven exchange systems. Woven mats are used as a way of exchanging value in some Pacific island communities. Mats are gifted on an occasions like a wedding or a death. Unique mats are woven by hand, passing on a history of craftsmanship and innovation. The weave expresses the craft and intention of the individual maker.
L I S T E N
The voice you hear in the Museum of Hidden Paths is Faumuina Felolini Tafunai. She speaks of her experience growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand with Samoan parents and the embodied understanding of the value of honouring creative relations between peoples. Faumuina works for something she has lived all her life: exchange practices based on the understanding that true wealth is distribution, reciprocity and relationship.
I M A G I N E
Consider yourself in a future of healthy creative reciprocity. A future possible in which the policies of the Museums and Cultural Institutions, the local Councils and the Government Agencies of the world are guided by awareness and understanding of social justice issues, reparations and support for diverse communities.
How do we live a future in which mainstream public understanding recognises and works to heal the painful legacy of Empire and violence against Indigenous peoples? A future in which children are educated about the plurality of cultures, ways of knowing and craft practice on this one planet. A future in which continual concerted effort is made to face the injustices of history and grow a greater understanding of the healthy alternatives to extractive capitalism.
Let’s create strong futures of healthy creative reciprocity. What conditions are needed for this possibility to thrive?
For Faumuina healthy exchange systems are not new or speculative ideas, but lived realities in communities of practice.
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Faumuina is an award-winning journalist and a Fellow with the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. She is the Chairperson of Further Arts and involved in projects recording alternative money practices on the Pacific islands of Vanuatu. Her work in the world is a celebration of the power of creativity to transform, nurture and heal culture.
Faumuina leads workshops teaching her wayfinding model as a lens for design work. She created this model through guiding conversations with navigator Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr from Aotearoa New Zealand and by voyaging on the ocean aboard Haunui sail boats. She has applied her wayfinding practice to her work all over the world with organisations like Bretton Woods 75 and Further Arts.
Faumuina’s websites:
www.flyinggeesepro.nz
www.furtherarts.org