Being with Hinemihi

The first whareNOW project was “Being with Hinemihi”, a series of five activity sessions that took place between January and July 2009. These were designed by Rosanna Raymond in consultation with parents and teachers from Kohanga Reo o Ranana (the London Maori preschool) (Kohanga web site accessed February 23 2012). This involved relocating Kohanga reo school sessions to UCL and Hinemihi. The activity sessions explored the relationship between British based Maori familiesand Hinemihi to reflect their relationship with home and Britain.  The sessions included  storytelling, spoken word, song, music, physical activity, visual art,  to articulate feelings of what Hinemihi means to her people. 

These sessions  fed into the development of a performance with Kohanga Reo that shares some of the significance and stories of Hinemihi and the whanau that care for her in Britain. Each element of the house and parts of the body that make up the ancestor were named and developed into an interpretation of the movement of the house parts. In doing so ‘ke o te whare’ (I am the House) became a direct link with the architecture of the building, her people becoming the embodiment of the building enacting the living ancestor. People becoming the house that makes Hinemihi into a living marae. Embodying the sense of community, transformed by encounter into unity. “Ko au te whare’ hassince been performed at several venues and many occasions, such as at Hangi celebrations at Hinemihi (Kohanga Reo o Ranana Hangi, June 21 2009) and at academic conferences (Visuality/Materiality: Reviewing Theory, Method and Practice July 11 2009 and New Zealand Network inaugural conference 2012).