Te Ao Mārama: The space for decolonisation to begin?

Tour of Te Ao Mārama At 5.30pm, Panel Discussion From 6.30pm.
Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum.
Part of The NZIA Architecture Festival 2021.
Free - bookings essential.

As part of the NZIA Architecture Festival 2021 and our Ngā Kākano wānanga series, join an expert panel as they explore the extent to which the Museum's Te Ao Mārama precinct is the ‘space for decolonisation to begin’.

Opened in December 2020, Auckland Museum’s award-winning Te Ao Mārama South Atrium precinct represents the most significant intervention in the Museum’s architecture in decades. Delivering catalytic change in cultural orientation to the Museum and in public engagement, Te Ao Mārama is very rapidly cementing the role of the Museum as a cultural and social anchor role in Tāmaki Makaurau. Visitors can now experience unique mana whenua and Pasifika welcome and narratives. The scale and dimensionality of the suspended Tanoa (kava bowl) architecture has been fully revealed, lifting the cultural dignity of this important threshold to the Museum.

Te Ao Mārama (the Realm of Light) represents a step change in the development of a bicultural and communitarian architecture at Auckland Museum, a building steeped in the formality of the western design tradition. It signals the present and the future of Tāmaki, connecting but also breaking with the Museum’s colonial heritage. Addressing Albert Refiti’s recent provocation, our speakers will explore the extent to which Te Ao Mārama is the ‘space for decolonisation to begin’.