The bicultural history of Tāmaki Makaurau in poster displays

Visitors can scan the QR code on the side of two steel pourama (light columns) on the corner of Sale St and Wellesley St and hear a poem by Hone Tuwhare.
Aucklanders can look up to the wall across from the Central City Library and see and read a new series of 28 posters of poems on display until September 29.
Whakataukī and whakatauākī (sayings and proverbs), poems in te reo Māori and English, and song lyrics with photography featuring landmarks visible throughout Tāmaki Makaurau, are depicted in the posters along the wall.
Hone Tuwhare’s poem ‘He motu te awa He awa koe’ (The river is an island) features in the poster wall with an image from Te Maharatanga o Ngā Wai (Remembering Our Waters).
The latter is a pocket park on the corner of Victoria St West and Sale St where te reo Māori can be seen, read, heard, and spoken through a QR code.
Visitors can scan the QR code on the side of two steel pourama (light columns) standing tall on the corner of Sale St and Wellesley St and hear a poem by the celebrated New Zealand manu kōrero (poet) recited in both te reo Māori and English by the children of the young men who have led this project.
Hone Tuwhare (Ngāti Korokoro, Ngāti Tautahi, Te Popoto, Te Uri-O-Hau) remains a national treasure, and stands as one of the most important Māori literary voices of the 20th century.
Tuwhare lived in Nelson St as a child, attended Campbell’s Kindergarten nearby in Victoria Park, and worked as a boilermaker in a workshop along Sale St as a tradesman in the 1970s. His footprints, and now his words through this initiative, are again alive and celebrated in this place.
This project was granted permission by the Tuwhare whānau to utilise ‘He motu te awa He awa koe’ (The river is an island) to highlight the memory of the stream that ran through this site.
The poem Hone wrote in English has been translated into te reo Māori by Waihoroi Hotorene (Ngāti Hine) as part of this placemaking project which illuminates the waters flowing beneath the city.
The project, enabled by Auckland Council with the city centre targeted rate and Māori Outcomes funding, brings a unique and thought-provoking public place design to the area.
Curator for the wall of posters, featuring Te Maharatanga o Ngā Wai and many other landmarks in the city, is Ataahua Papa (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Ngāti Mahuta). Photography in the posters is by Te Rawhitiroa Bosch (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Pākehā).