Treasures for the Rising Generation: CANCELLED

Hei Taonga Mā Ngā Uri Whakatipu

From 1919–1923, a team from the Dominion Museum, sponsored by Sir Apirana Ngata, travelled across the North Island to record Māori customary practices. The expeditions were among the first in the world to use cutting-edge techniques such as moving film and wax cylinder recordings, and they were also the first to be inspired and actively supported by indigenous leaders.

The story of these expeditions is now being told in a book by expert researchers and writers. Join Dame Anne Salmond and Natalie Robertson (Ngāti Porou/Clann Dhònnchaidh) with Dr Monty Soutar ONZM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tamaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) to learn how the expeditions led to innovations by Māori leaders in health, education, law, cultural heritage, artistic practice and intellectual inquiry.

I te tau 1919 ki te tau 1923, I tautokona ā pūtea nei a Tā Apirana Ngata e tētehi rōpū o te ‘Dominion Museum’ ki te huri haere I te Ika-a-Māui, hopu haere ai I ngā whakahaere a te Māori. Mai I ngā mahi hī ika ki te raranga, ki te karakia ki te waiata. Hei tāonga tukuiho ēnei mā ngā uri, otirā ko te hangarau I whakamahia I taua wā rā, he mea whakamahia tuatahitia ki konei ki Aotearoa.

Dame Anne Salmond | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Dame Anne Salmond ONZ DBE FRSNZ FBA is James McDonald’s great-granddaughter and a Distinguished Professor of Māori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, and a leading social scientist. She is the winner of the Rutherford Medal, New Zealand’s top scientific prize, and many international fellowships and awards. She is the author of a series of prizewinning books about Māori life, European voyaging and cross-cultural encounters in the Pacific, most recently Tears of Rangi (Auckland University Press, 2017). In 2021 she was granted the Order of New Zealand, the country’s top award.

Natalie Robertson | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Natalie Robertson (Ngāti Porou, Clann Dhònnchaidh) is a photographic and moving image artist and Senior Lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, Tāmaki Makaurau. Much of her practice is based in Tairāwhiti, her East Coast Ngāti Porou homelands, where her focus is on her ancestral Waiapu River and the protracted catastrophic impacts of colonisation, deforestation and agriculture. She has exhibited extensively in public institutions throughout New Zealand and internationally. She photographed for the award-winning book A Whakapapa of Tradition: One Hundred Years of Ngāti Porou Carving, 1830–1930, written by Ngarino Ellis (Auckland University Press, 2016).

Dr Monty Soutar | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Dr Monty Soutar ONZM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tamaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) is an award-winning historian. He has published two major research and publication projects; Nga Tama Toa: Price of Citizenship: C Company 28 (Maori) Battalion 1939-1945 (Bateman, 2008) and Whiti! Whiti! Whiti! E! Māori in the First World War (Bateman, 2019). He has also made a significant contribution as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal and in the development of the Te Tai Whakaea: Treaty Settlement Stories Project at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. He was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship in 2021.