Te Pātaka Art Trail is a community project involving the development of a 3-month long programme of public art and creative placemaking activities in the current and former campus areas of Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka (Unitec Institute of Technology) at Ōwairaka (Mt. Albert).

 

The trail is intended to encourage public engagement with significant heritage, cultural and environmental qualities of the site, such as Te Wai Unuroa o Wairaka, Te Auaunga and Rangimarie Pā Harakeke, at a time of unprecedented housing intensification and urban change.  

 

Pātaka are storehouses, pantries or larders (Te Aka Māori Dictionary). Te Pātaka Art Trail functions as a metaphorical storehouse feeding the senses, mind and spirit. The notion of a pātaka also draws attention to the site or land itself as a repository of living knowledge, interwoven across time with all who have dwelt in the surrounding ecology as well as the generations to come.  

​

Serving as a prototype for the future, the trail took place between October and December 2022 and included a multidisciplinary programme of events and activations.