Koko Nights Ft MahMah x Te Papa

Koko Nights - Ft MahMah x Te Papa

My name is MahMah Timoteo and I am a community co-collector on the Manalagi x Te Papa Community Co-Collection Project. Our team consists of Phylesha Brown-Acton MNZM, Allyssa Verner-Pula, and myself; we are all proud members of our Pasifika Rainbow+ / MVPFAFF+ communities here in Aotearoa.

In 2022, the Manalagi Project began working with Te Papa’s Pacific curatorial team on an exciting community co-collection project. A community co-collection project involves a team of community co-collectors connecting with their communities, to identify taonga that holds value and importance to the individual and collective histories and stories within their communities.

These taonga and the stories they carry will then be gifted to Te Papa, who will use their curatorial skills to care for the taonga. There will be financial compensation for this taonga, based on both market and emotional value. For this project, the taonga will live in Te Papa’s Pacific collection, including a residency at Te Papa during Pride Month 2024. More information on that to come.

This co-collecting project aims to gather the histories and stories that exist within our Pacific Rainbow+/MVPFAFF+ communities. With this project, we have the unique opportunity to collect taonga that braids our histories and stories into the wider Pacific collection at Te Papa - and subsequently, wider Pacific historical and cultural narratives here in Aotearoa.

I am reaching out to the Pacific Rainbow+ community as we believe that out stories should be represented within this collection. We want this project to serve as a reminder that Pacific Rainbow+/MVPFAFF+ communities have always been here. As a collective and individuals, we all have stories, histories and cultures that are important, and deserve to be platformed.

We are looking for taonga that has important historical and personal value, relating to our Pacific Rainbow+/MVPFAFF+ communities in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Taonga can look like a beautiful tapa cloth, but it can also look like a t-shirt or a badge - whatever it may be, this is a chance to showcase the diverse experiences that exist within our communities.

If there is something special of yours that you would like to have considered for this collection, please come along to the Moana Vā Koko night on the 15th May OR get in touch with MahMah via email (mahmah.tetini@canterbury.ac.nz) and we can make arrangements to connect either via Zoom or in person to discuss this further.

Meitaki ma’ata