The End is the Beginning

NZIBBY asked me if I would be able to provide them with a Season's Greetings card to end 2017. I opted to depict my favourite summer destination - Waiotahe Beach, Opotiki.

Postcard. Copyright 2017 Zak Waipara

I also added in an appropriate Maori proverb, well-loved by my father, the poetic version of the English translation is also his.

The real deal! Copyright 2017 Zak Waipara

Ōhakō Exhibition

Last year I was involved with an exhibition celebrating the Rongowhakaata iwi. Te Papa Tongarewa museum has for the last few years been hosting exhibitions from different tribal regions around NZ. Now it is the turn of the Rongowhakaata iwi. 

Copyright 2017 Zak Waipara

The first stage was local exhibitions at each of the marae around Manutuke and Gisborne, which I affiliate to all of them through my iwi connections, but our family was asked to contribute to Ōhakō Marae. The wharenui, Kiko-ote-Rangi (open unto the heavens), is unadorned by carvings, so there was some concern about what we could exhibit. The hapū decided that since many of the uri (descendants) were artists and musicians that we could show both traditional and contemporary examples of our craft. 

Copyright 2017 Zak Waipara

I decided my contribution could be a motion graphics piece to illustrate a short piece of oral history. It could also double as a very low-key proof of concept project, essentially using motion graphic techniques e.g. mixture of animated elements, kinetic type, to tell non-fiction stories, which is something I have become more interested in. The process involved listening to an hour’s worth of audio recorded at a whakapapa wānanga session, to find a short section that would work as a self-contained story, then transcribe that part of the audio. I edited the audio down further, to remove some extraneous sounds, and some tangential stories that might work better in another style. This became a three-minute piece, but also has the potential be developed more fully at a later stage (for instance, using those other excised stories). The style I adopted was based on modified carvings with an illustrative approach (flat rather than 3D), but also to have these located on a physical plane, mimicking the walls of a house. The various font treatments were meant to replicate tukutuku weaving panels. 

Copyright 2017 Zak Waipara

The second stage was to curate items from all the marae into a smaller exhibition at Tairāwhiti Museum, that opened September 15th 2016. The third and final stage for this exhibition opened at Te Papa in Wellington in September of this year. I was asked to contribute an animated project to this – which I will talk about in a later post!

IBBY Congress & Storylines 2016

IBBY (or the International Board on Books for Young People) “is a non-profit organisation representing an international network of countries and people, mostly volunteers, dedicated to bringing books and children together. It is the only international body working comprehensively for children’s books.” 

Design for the conference home page.

Many years in the organising, New Zealand was lucky enough to be the host country this year. The theme of this conference was “Literature in a multiliterate world” with three sub-themes - Global, local and indigenous literature, Diverse literary forms and formats, and Engaging readers. 

Opening ceremony. Photo copyright Zak Waipara

Given my own interest in all these areas, I was keen to be involved and was accepted to present a poster (a visualisation of the presentation I gave in the UK) and also asked to appear on a panel: Illustration Unbound: Narrative Art Across Genres, Age Groups, Cultures, and from Paper to Pixels and Beyond. It was chaired by Leonard Marcus a “historian, critic, exhibition curator, and lecturer in the field of children’s books and their illustration.” 

Poster display. Photo copyright Zak Waipara

Leonard took great care in chairing the panel – contacting us all ahead of time to consider the purpose and how best to make use of our time. I was lucky enough to meet him and have a chat beforehand as well. You can hear a Radio NZ interview with Leonard here: 

A treatise on the importance of picture books by Leonard Marcus.

My fellow panellists were Roger Mello (Brazil) and Bronwyn Bancroft (Australia). I was tasked with being a minder for Guest Delegate Bronwyn Bancroft, It was very heartening to hear about her work involving her Aboriginal community. Here is a link to an interview on Radio NZ. 

Some of Bronwyn's amazing work. Photo copyright Zak Waipara

Roger Mello discussed his children's work dealing with serious themes in his home country, such as child labour. It echoed a point raised by Witi Ihimaera in his rousing keynote address (a real call to action) on the first day of the conference, when he advocated for stories that tackled the pressing issues facing the next generation! He asked, "who is writing the story for the child whose island is about to be swamped by rising sea levels?"

Peter Dowling of Oratia Press (looking after Roger Mello at the conference) was in the front row of the audience and reports on the panel here, and the IBBY UK delegation also has a nice summary of the event and Katarina Kokanović from Croatia reports here: 

The best thing about any conference like this is being surrounded by a vast group of new and interesting people from all over the world who are passionately interested in this one area. For me it was personally inspiring, and I feel following on from the experience, all this time later, I am still coasting on a new wave of creativity. 

Giant pop-up book. Photo copyright Zak Waipara

STORYLINES 2016 

The following week, I hit the road as part of Storylines 2016 Northland Tour, with Anne Dickson, Tim Tipene, Maria Gill and Lesley Dowding. What a fantastic group of people to be on tour with! It was a slightly surreal departure in Auckland seeing Henry Rollins in the hotel foyer in which we were gathered. As always we were shown the hospitality of Northland schools, and met with passionate teachers and creative and talented children. It all wound up with a Family Day event hosted at the Kaitaia library.

The amazingly designed Kaitaia library.