Ora te Toi 2025: Celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Māori through art

Ora te Toi 2025 opened earlier this month at Square Edge Community Arts Centre in Palmerston North, marking the sixth annual exhibition dedicated to celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Running from 4 to 28 September, Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm, the exhibition transforms the gallery entrance into a vibrant showcase of te reo Māori, affirming the language as a living, intergenerational practice.

This year’s exhibition is dedicated to Ihaka Noble, affectionately known as Bambam, or by tamariki as Ihaka Paopao. Ihaka’s story of hitchhiking around Aotearoa to support Māori language revitalisation and his lifetime of quiet determination reflects the many everyday people whose efforts which helped ensure te reo Māori’s survival and serve as a reminder that language revitalisation is a collective achievement.

Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University has strong ties to the kaupapa through alumna and Senior Lecturer in Toioho ki Apiti, Karangawai Marsh, who co-founded RaRau Mai, the initiative at the heart of Ora te Toi.

Karangawai is a long-time teacher of the Te Ataarangi movement which focuses on learning Te Reo Māori through immersion and participation rather than traditional classroom instruction. She saw the need to create spaces where whānau could immerse themselves in te reo Māori beyond the home, kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa — using art as the bridge.

Over the past six years, Ora te Toi has given tamariki as young as two the opportunity to exhibit their work, with some of those same artists now returning as eight-year-olds. All exhibition text is presented entirely in te reo Māori, ensuring the language is central to the visitor experience.

The opening event was attended by Professor Robert Jahnke, founding professor of Toioho ki Āpiti: Māori Visual Arts at Massey, who celebrated the achievements of tamariki artists and acknowledged their place in the whakapapa of contemporary creatives. Artist Reweti Arapere and alumni of Toioho reflected on the growth of the pā harakeke - a metaphor for intergenerational continuity and resilience within the Māori-speaking arts community in Palmerston North.

Ora te Toi 2025 reminds visitors that te reo Māori is not just celebrated during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori — it is lived, shared, and carried forward, ake, ake, ake.