Fiona Clark’s The Waitara Project will launch on Saturday 10 October with the artist in residence for the day. Clark’s activation is a restaging of the hokohoko (bartering) activities that started in the 1980s as the Poverty Shop, later named the Waitara Project Community shop. Clark says, “The Project questions consumerism and undermines the present economic system of profit, waste and exploitation, and so does its extension at Te Tuhi: an area for free, non-monetary exchange. The seed items for the exchange area come from Waitara. They carry with them the history of the project and of Waitara itself.

“The Community Shop was not operating during the lockdown, but our community was. We phoned to check on each other, and we made sure that everyone was looked after. The Waitara Project was briefly disrupted by the pandemic, but the environmental, climate and social injustices that it was founded to counter continue, and so does our work.”

Visitors are invited to take something and leave something at the hokohoko station set up in the foyer of Te Tuhi. This Saturday, Te Tuhi have Fiona Clark present for the day, to engage with visitors and discuss the project.