June 19, 2020
Tairāwhiti tile project gets digital revamp
As people contemplate large gatherings again, the Tairāwhiti Arts Festival is preparing a slate of safely-spaced music, performance, dance and visual arts events for October.
Director Tama Waipara says the COVID-19 lockdown also inspired a digital event, which should get people in the festival mood.
It’s asking people whose self-portraits are on Gisborne’s 1999 Millennium Tile Wall to sign up online and share photos, videos or song or performance and other artworks they may have created in the last 20 years.
The Pakiwaitara project is being led by Iwicomms director David Jones, who was one of the 6000 Tairāwhiti school children who contributed a tile.
Mr Waipara says they want to know where these people are now and who they have become.
"Borders are closed and some of these people may not be home for a while. Some of these people might be living all over the world so we just wanted to use this as a way to reconnect our community, re-engage and also just make a point art is all around us, art is part of the everyday," he says.
For more information, please visit www.pakiwaitara.nz.
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