Under the auspicious rising of Matariki, Basement Theatre is hosting a four-day wānanga retreat this week for nine emerging Māori artists. Creating space for connection and rejuvenation, experts in indigenous art forms and body practices will facilitate an array of workshops and experiences, adorning the artists the taonga of their ancestors.

We are humbled to be able to carry our Matariki wānanga into its second year with yet another cohort of deadly Māori unicorns. Spanning across a diverse range of artforms, these creative forces will bring our Matariki kaupapa to life and we can't wait to manaaki them into our spaces and into the wider basement whānau. Taputapu kē nei rātou!  <3

Nau mai haere mai Hāmiora Bailey (Ngāti Porou Ki Harataunga, Ngāti Huarere)

Hāmiora (Samuel) Bailey (Ngāti Porou Ki Harataunga, Ngāti Huarere) is a curator, creative director, and multidisciplinary artist whose practice looks at metabolising Kōrero Tuku Iho, to affirm whakapapa as a citational practice, through his business Kōpū O Te Rangi.

As a multidisciplinary artist, Bailey’s methodologies straddle photography, videography, digital design & public art. As a former member of both Lowtide Studios and Āhua Collective - Hāmiora has used whakawhānuitanga (making as a collective) to disrupt space through building Mana-Hononga-Tangata (meaningful living relationships).

As Kaiwhakahaere Takatāpui (First Nations Creative Director), Hāmiora founded and co-produced Te Tīmatanga, Auckland Pride’s premier Takatāpui Festival. In one lap around the sun, the festival has shown over 45 artists in 7 venues, as a hybrid digital and in person festival that has reached over 350,000 people.

Hāmiora most recently saw success through Pīkari Mai, a digital art intervention and protest of the Coronation of King Charles III, receiving acknowledgment from Iwi Taketake across the globe, featuring in The Guardian, Reuters, and Design Boom. Finding over half a million dollars’ worth of investment to demonstrate social practice on billboards across Aotearoa.

Hāmiora’s works has been shown in Whānau Mārama 2022, Auckland Council Matariki Festival 2022, Auckland City of Colour, and Sydney World Pride 2023.

Nau mai haere mai Liam Jacobson (Kāi Tahu)

Liam Jacobson (Kāi Tahu) is a poet, writer and maker from Manurewa, South Auckland. Working both independently and collaboratively, they have exhibited drawings and shared poems in galleries, pubs and alleys across Aotearoa and overseas. This includes with Auckland Art Gallery, Gus Fisher, Te Tuhi, Phantom Billstickers, and Sanc. While predominantly focused on poetry, their practice travels beyond common conventions, weaving through different spheres and incorporating curiosities of different mediums. They’ve also facilitated a range of workshops with rangatahi, focussed on both poetry and theatre, and have recently graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA in Sociology and Film. Soon, Liam will be releasing their debut poetry collection, ‘Neither’, with publishers Dead Bird Books.

Nau mai haere mai Daley Rangi (Te Atiawa)

Daley Rangi is an antidisciplinary artist generating the unpredictable - speaking truth to power, reorienting hierarchies, and investigating injustice. They’ve made a lot of art - not all of it good, but most of it interesting. They are neurodivergent, which appears to infiltrate their work. Speaking of, their practice has, thus far, exhumed tall tales of ecological sovereignty, disability ethics, ideological virality, contested histories, Takatāpui labour, and many other manifestations. For them, self-biographies are all-at-once discomforting, superfluous, and crucial; in constant dialogue with colonial systems. Daley, like their practice, is inspired by whakapapa and still searching for answers. They currently reside on Gadigal Eora country, on the lands known as Australia.

Nau mai haere mai Ming Ranginui (Te Atihaunui-a-pāpārangi)

Ming Ranginui (Te Ati Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) is an artist from Whanganui who currently resides in Porirua. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (hons) at Massey University, Wellington in 2020. She creates a variety of sculptures by reimagining everyday objects, often dressed in satin and her signature smocking. She has recently incorporated raranga/whatu into her practice since studying at Raukawa in 2022.

Her practice is healing in how it allows her to process current or past situations that she has lived through and create a narrative that relates to personal experience, but also to wider themes such as colonisation, Tino rangatiraganga and spirituality. Her work is often inspired by fairytales, she is interested in how over time these stories have been adapted to reflect contemporary values and ideas, through Ming's art she creates her own versions of these tales that are drawn from her personal experiences. Recent exhibitions include The field, Gertrude Contemporary (2023); Late to the ball, Season, Auckland (2023); Sleigh, Robert Heald, Wellington (2023); Matarau, City gallery, Wellington (2022); Cruel optimism: New artist show, Artspace, Auckland, 2021.

Nau mai haere mai Kiriana Sheree (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou)

Kiriana is a Kai-Maninirau Kaiwhakaari, actor, playwright and occasionally director. She recently trained in movement and acting fundamentals at the most prestigious acting school in the world, The Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts in London. She was the inaugural recipient of Auckland Prides takatāpui residency, has been a performer for the Dust Palace Circus Theatre Company and recently selected as one of the founding kaiako of Te Kura Maninirau, Aotearoa’s first ever kaupapa māori circus school. She will also be making her play debut in play-read fashion later this year on stage in Tāmaki Makaurau. Kiriana’s hopes and dreams lie in centring diverse experiences on stage whenever possible, in whatever form.

Nau mai haere mai Ella Rerekura (Te Atihaunui-a-pāpārangi, Ngāti Tuwharetoa)

Ko Te Atihaunui-a-pāpārangi me te Ngāti Tuwharetoa ngā iwi. Ella Rerekura is an emerging independent dance artist based in Aotearoa. Ella identifies as a CODA (child of deaf adults) and an Indigenous fairy princess. Born and raised in Ōtautahi by her two Deaf parents, encouraged to dance by her Gmama because she was always dancing and improvising in her lounge, so much so that Ella eventually graduated from Hagley Dance Company in 2017. Ella now resides in Tāmaki Makaurau, where she recently completed a bachelor's in performing and screen arts (Contemporary Dance) at Te Pūkenga a Unitec. Ella’s interests as an artist lie within forming a multidisciplinary practice that engages with her experiences as a CODA, Māori and Wahine.

Nau mai haere mai Briar Pomana (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine)

Tāria taku moko Māori ki ngā kiriata o te wā.

Embed my native soul in the world of film. 

Briar Pomana is a mokopuna of the people of Rakaipaaka and the clay. If you had to ask her where her heart lie she’d tell you it's stretched between Te Haro o te Kaahu and Wharerata. She is an emerging writer and filmmaker that ultimately wants to create work her family will think is cool and nostalgic.

Nau mai haere mai Renati Waaka (Te Arawa/Tainui)

Ko Renati ahau, and I reside in Pōneke. I am currently completing my masters in fine art at Massey University. I am an interdisciplinary artist using photography as a primary medium to explore and connect more intentionally to Te Ao Māori.

Nau mai haere mai Kura Turuwhenua (Ngāti Porou, Tūhoe, Kāi Tahu)

Kura Turuwhenua is a young crack-up with a passion for dark and silly humour. In just a short while on the NZ stand-up comedy scene, she's won the NZ Raw Comedy Quest 2022, has won awards from the New Zealand Comedy Guild and Auckland Fringe Festival, and has made her first television appearance as part of the Comedy Mixtape. Additionally, she’s worked as a writer for the hit show 7 Days, her self-made comedy short film was selected for the Māoriland Film Festival 2023 and she's gone viral multiple times on TikTok and Instagram. She also has her first-ever solo comedy hour Hōhā Guy in the NZ Comedy Festival this year!