Te Rina Warren

Audio – Taupuni toi ataata

Pao – Traditional Māori welcome/ karakia

Taupuni toi ataata draws on Māori narrative, oriori, and the composer’s current PhD research investigating the decoloniality of Māori engagement with the internet. The words are a welcome to an ancestral space and recognise the exhibition as an embellishment of Ranginui – a connection of peoples across time and space. The composition acknowledges the construction of the Mana Moana visual art exhibition in the digital online space. Each artistic exhibition is referenced as a repository of knowledge, an ‘ipu’, possessing rich narratives from various places, which are now housed on the ‘ipurangi’, internet.

Te Rina Warren (Rangitāne, Maniapoto & Mōkai Pātea (Whitikaupeka)) is: a māmā to a Raukura (graduate of Kura Kaupapa Māori); an iwi tonotono; wannabe artist (mostly infographics); wannabe breaker of chains (of colonial amnesia); and aspiring ‘cool’ aunty. She teaches Māori education & Maori development, is a Te Atakura Treaty of Waitangi educator… who often gate-crashes her daughters classes. Her current Phd study investigates the internet and Māori/indigenous cultural values. This contribution is influenced by her personal experience & a number of wananga with influential thinkers.