Wishes to Hiwa-i-te-Rangi

Join us for the interactive pop-up installation of Hiwa-i-te-Rangi: The Wishing Star by Penny Howard, to celebrate Matariki and Te Tau Hou Māori (the Māori New Year), taking place in the Homestead reception area. 
 
You are invited to write your wish, hope or aspiration for Matariki on the back of one of the wishbones held in the kono (basket) and tie it to the whai (string game). 
 
Wishbones left by visitors throughout the festival will be offered to Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, the wishing star, through fire at our Dawn Wishes to Hiwa ceremony on Tuesday 21 July, 6.30am. As the Matariki cluster shines in the early-morning sky, we will come together in karakia, fire and kai. Dress warmly and join us beneath the stars for this meaningful moment of release, intention and new beginnings. 

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Penny Howard is of Māori (Te Mahurehure, Ngāpuhi), Irish, and Scottish descent. Her work explores memories, stories, and the longing for whānau, whakapapa, and tūrangawaewae within both her Māori and European ancestry. She questions what we have lost culturally through colonisation and the Pacific diaspora but also the connections that we can retrace and hold within ourselves to pass on to future generations. The red thread in Penny’s work represents I Nga Wa O Mua (the Māori worldview), taking the past with us into
the future for guidance.

Penny graduated from Auckland University of Technology Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau in 1995. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Arts House Trust, Foundation North, Viaduct Events Centre, The University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, the NZ Parliamentary Collection, and in private collections across Aotearoa, Australia, the UK, China, and Canada.