When you travel around New Zealand our heritage since colonisation is visible in museums, monuments and buildings, in town and marae.
Yet the long history of occupation of the land prior to this remains invisible to most of us.
Yet, retold walking the land, the landscape can light up with connections and stories as the sites of pā, gardens, and trails by land and water are made apparent.
Locales are an award winning place-based storytelling agency who have been working with communities to make this heritage more visible. They do so through digital technology, available through your phone, oral histories and new kinds of signage.
It's work that might allow both locals to these places and visitors better appreciate how rich our relationship with the land has been.
One of Locales' most recent projects He Ara Kotahi, Hei Ara Kōrero won a 2024 Best Design Award. It's an innovative digital storytelling trail revealing the histories of six culturally significant sites around the Manawatū River. Using augmented reality and 3D modeling the experience allows people to move through what is now central Palmerston North, when this was says Locale "a place of lush forests, pristine waterways, and bustling settlements." For the project representatives of Rangitāne o Manawatū identified significant kōrero, places, and tūpuna to share, with hours of oral histories filmed.
This project was preceded by another in the central North island which won even more awards. Initiated by mana whenua, Ngā Ara Tipuna interprets a set of pā and wetland sites across Waipukurau and Takapau in the central Hawkes Bay, as well as the site of Pukekaihau Pā, considered a thriving Māori settlement from the 1600s until the 1830s.
It won multiple Best Awards, was supreme winner at the 2022 Hawkes Bay Heritage Awards and Outstanding Project at the 2023 Recreation Aotearoa Awards.
So - three years on - how is Ngā Ara Tipuna doing in enabling change in the community? We were joined by Ngā Ara Tīpuna cultural lead Brian Morris of Ngāti Mārau and Ngāi Te Rangitotohu and Locales director Chris Hay.
