How might Chinese residents in Aotearoa build respectful and caring relationships with this place through shared learning and making alongside Māori knowledge?

Weaving Belonging is a culturally restorative installation, which re-invents the traditional Chinese folding screen as a place of encounter between Māori and Chinese knowing and making. The project is created as a part of Te Ara Tukutuku, a redeveloped waterfront in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), and discusses how design can foster belonging and reciprocity by participating in acts of mutual care and creation. The work applies harakeke (New Zealand flax) as its primary material, which contains in the fibres the Māori principles of kaitiakitanga (care and guardianship), whanaungatanga (relationships) and sustainability. Along with this comes the Chinese custom of the folding screen, a cultural manifestation that is a representation of such concepts of the boundary, transformation and beauty in day-to-day life. 

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