Enabling Place to Stand with Mana: Tū ana te mana o te whenua!

Abstract

Te Maharatanga o Ngā Wai stands as a demonstration of the quality of place that can be created through true partnership and one which allows for an immersive experience irrepressibly connected to the areas past present and future. Through physical elements and digital media, members of the public are invited to remember and respect the stream that once flowed through this site, and to question the wider plight of the streams and water systems that used to lend their mana and mauri to the city centre, now covered over, reclaimed, piped away and largely forgotten by the city. This was a pilot project conceived to test a new way of working in partnership with tangata whenua with focus on growing native human resource, Te Maharatanga o Ngā Wai has been proven to work, and to offer benefits for all involved, particularly for place.