Māpuna

Dr Maia Nuku (Ngai Tai) is the Oceania curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and recently its Oceania galleries underwent a major renovation. They will reopen in May 2025 and host a number of delegations from the Pacific including one from Aotearoa.

Black Ferns Sevens captain Sarah Hirini has just returned from Cape Town where she led her team to victory in a tournament there. It adds to a stacked trophy cabinet that includes Olympic and Commonwealth Games gold medals, sevens world championships and two World Cups in the 15-a-side game.

Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman is one of a new wave of Maori thinkers and academics whose research includes policing, health, education and indigenous knowledge systems in Aotearoa and overseas. Next year he'll be Victoria University's Emerging Maori Writer in residence. Where will his expertise and curiosity lead him next?

Ngāti Toa rangatira Helmut Modlik and chief Kirk Francis from the Penobscot tribe in the northeastern United States discuss sovereignty, tribal economies and constitutional arrangements following an Indigenous Leaders symposium in Wellington.

This week Lady Tureiti Moxon received an honorary doctorate from Waikato University for her outstanding contribution to the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders. She's also chair of the National Urban Māori Authority, a lawyer who helped to settle her iwi's treaty claim and she's an important voice in the delivery of Māori health care and the ongoing debate about the status of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The award winning and internationally acclaimed Maori artist, Shane Cotton, opens a new show in Tamaki Makaurau this weekend. His new paintings are billed as a "collision of Indigenous and European time systems through the lens of his Ngāpuhi whakapapa."

Over the past 50 years Professor Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku has been one of the most influential Maori academics and writers. In 1981 she became the first Maori woman to receive a PHD from a New Zealand University and was at the vanguard of women's and gay liberation movements dating back to the 1970s.

Portia Woodman-Wickliffe conquered every summit in rugby union with Olympic gold medals and World Cups in her trophy cabinet. She traces her life from Kaikohe to globetrotting rugby star. Her parents' advice was 'just run like hell.' It worked as she scored more than 250 tries for New Zealand.

Mapuna hosts Anton Matthews who's the Director of Hustle group which operates a range of hospitality ventures including Fush which serves fish and chips and offers free lessons in Te Reo Maori. What started as a small initiative quickly caught fire as thousands of people registered their interest.

At just 45 years of age Justin Tipa's election as the Kaiwhakahaere of Ngai Tahu last year marked a generational shift in the iwi's top leadership. How is he faring at the helm with around two billion dollars in assets and more than 85-thousand iwi members?

The award winning architect Professor Anthony Hoete has written a chapter in a new book, Urban Aotearoa, The Future of Our Cities, and recently the Royal Society Te Aparangi made Professor Hoete a fellow for his advancement of New Zealand and Maori architecture worldwide. He spent 30 years in London before coming home a few years ago and is now a professor of architecture at Waipapa Taumata Rau, Auckland University.

Julian Wilcox drops in to the Auckland offices of award winning Māori architect Nicholas Dalton and the company he founded, TOA.

Ngai Tahu academic Matthew Scobie has co-written a new book with Anna Sturman from the University of Sydney, called The Economic Possibilities of Decolonisation in which they write 'the future of Aotearoa depends on how Māori engage with capitalism.' And the musical duo, Aro, featuring husband and wife Charles and Emily Looker, join Julian Wilcox in the studio to perform a track from their new album He Rakau, He Ngarara.

Fran Ebbett was just a schoolgirl when she started dreaming of becoming a pilot and eventually she rose through the ranks to captain an Air New Zealand passenger jet, possibly the first Māori woman to do so.

The Auckland Writers Festival starts on May 14 and its promotional push highlights a roll-call of talent from across the arts; Booker prize winner for 2023, Paul Lynch, plus generations of Māori writers from Patricia Grace to Becky Manawatu.