We are a re-membering collective.
We are a purposeful, living friendship
to love and compost.
We share time, power, and resources with each other,
with whenua,
and with the more-than-human kin who accompany us.
We stand in Aotearoa.
Where atua pulse through soil, water, wind, tide and people
Where mātauranga carries memory
where mauri endures.
We stand in Aotearoa
where land is stolen and abused
where water is sullied
where tangata whenua resist and persist
where tikanga remains outlawed.
We notice this violence is very close at hand.
We notice the shattering of the myth of progress
And the dis-ease of what still continues in its name.
We notice modernity is awful for all of us,
That we are embroiled in this mess.
We stand together in this rot
And notice that love and unlearning
live side by side.
That spent ideas
decay with accountability,
That fecund aliveness
rises from decomposition.
We notice that fractals replicate
That our patterns matter
That tenderness matters.
We stand together in this rot,
not to save one another, or to be rescued,
But to re-member
That our liberation
is mysteriously woven,
Into the web that exists between us all.
We stand as descendants
as mothers and future ancestors
we tend to our wounds and stories
inherited and invented
seen and unseen
With rongoā
We breathe.
We are guided by slowness, curiosity, honesty and reverence
To create a place of sanctuary and mess
For our Wholeness
For our edges
and for the spaces that exist between us.
These days demand that we move
with less purpose than ever before
And so we offer you nothing, regularly.
At shoulder
without need or expectation,
we intend to
Love
and
Compost.
About us
Moko Morris (Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Te Ātiawa)
Moko is a sister, daughter, mother, grandmother and has been breathing in the Kai motuhake spaces. She has been learning and growing ways in which knowledge and connections support our taiao, so that all our contributions move us towards a food secure, just Aotearoa. With a long career working with communities on holistic sustainability, Moko is Pou Maaori at Kore Hiakai Zero Hunger Collective. For more visit, https://www.zerohunger.org.nz/
Kaia Hawkins (Ngā Ruahine, Ngāti Pahauwera)
He tuahine, he whaea, he tamāhine, he hoa, he kare ~ Kaia moves at the intersections of decolonisation, embodiment, and collective care. A teacher of movement and unlearning, they work with dance as a practice of remembering ~ of body, whenua, whakapapa, and possibility. Their mahi asks how we compost the old patterns of supremacy and disconnection, and nourish futures rooted in justice, aroha, and belonging. Kaia teaches locally and internationally through Open Floor Art in Motion and Manāhau Embodied Movement, and offers supervision to teachers and practitioners exploring cultural sensitivity and decolonisation in their work. For more visit, https://www.kaiakindness.com/
Rebecca Sinclair
Rebecca is a mother, sister, daughter – helping her fellow Pākehā come back into the flow of life, and let go of colonial patterns that separate us from ourselves, each other, and te taiao. She is fascinated by the intangible, the improper and the in-between and how everything is always so much more extraordinary than we might think. She is an experienced tertiary educator, Co-founder of The Pākehā Project, Haumanu coach, and Honorary Research Fellow at Toi Rauwhārangi, College of Creative Arts, Massey University. For more visit, www.pakehaproject.nz
Sarah Hopkinson
Sarah is a daughter, sister, mother and wife. Anchored in her front yard food farm on Te Ātiawa ki Kāpiti whenua, Sarah is inspired by the invisible, loving ways in which the life-giving systems of te taiao provide useful guidance for how we might thrive together, particularly in education. Sarah has an extensive background in curriculum and facilitation. She explores identity, reconciliation and Te Tiriti led futures through her writing and is trained in non-violent communication and deep ecology. She is currently Head of Learning at Te Papa and co-researcher in The Tīpuna Project.
For more, visit www.sarahalicehopkinson.com
Design
Being kids of the 80s, we are inspired by the test cards that used to fill the television screens after the transmission had finished.
The coloured stripes and splices that used to reflect in our eyes as we waited for the morning cartoon to begin.
The spectrum includes black, white + blacker than black, with highly contrasting tones in between. In the relationships between these contrasting tones, impressive fidelity is found.
They’re still often used today in visual fields for calibration, alignment and for tuning.
The colours feel appropriate for this time of completing current programming and being open handed and hearted about the unknown of what might come next.
The contrast of the artificial, hyper saturated colour, with the work of Love + Compost, which is unapologetically grounded provides frisson too.
The colours represent a diverse spectrum of colour and light – prismatic.
As a collective we see ourselves in similar contrast and relationality to each other.
Entirely different to each other, but together, a fidelity is found.
Love and Compost 