I Like Your Form, former site of the Crown Plaza Hotel, Ōtautahi Christchurch, 2014

Kā Pakihi Whakatekateka a Waitaha - Rākaihautū and Rakihouia, Waitaha

The plains where the Waitaha strutted proudly

This Ngāi tahu pepeha can be seen as something of a tribal boast as it reflects Waitaha's delight in deciding on their first South Island home. Today it is used to link Canterbury Ngāi Tahu with their earlier Waitaha ancestors. Rākaihautu and Rakihouia, who the pepeha is attributed to, are founding Waitaha Tupuna. Pepeha are customary forms of spoken expression. They often embody tribal histories of settlement, tribal migrations, whakapapa (genealogy) or allude to the deeds of ancestors. They can be cited as codes for living, as insight into Ngāi Tahu perspectives of the world or as landmarks that anchor the past and reach to the future. For I Like Your Form, Hutchinson has used the landmark Kā Pakihi Whakatekateka a Waitaha pepeha, distilling the pepeha's essential meaning and reimagining it in a visual form.

The intervention of kupenga (net) artwork I Like Your Form in the Arcades, draws from the form of traditional Māori fishing kupenga and hinaki (eel traps) that were used to catch inaka (whitebait) and tuna (eels) in the Ōtākaro. The Ōtākaro Awa plays a unique role in the traditional economy and culture of Ngāi Tahu. The most direct physical relationship that Ngāi Tahu have with water involves the protection, harvesting, and management of mahinga kai. The term “mahinga kai” refers to natural resources and the area in which they are found. It includes the way resources are gathered, the places they are gathered from, and the resources themselves, for example, fish such as tuna and inaka and materials such as harakeke. The Ōtākaro was highly regarded as mahinga kai by Māori living around or near what is now the Christchurch area. The intervention of the kupenga tensioned between the two sets of arcades is a reclaiming of place that is of significance to Ngāi Tahu. I Like Your Form acknowledges and celebrates the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, and in particular customary fishing and management rights. 

This temporary work was commissioned by Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA). Project Manager: Jo Mair