The artworks include whakairo and paintings from tauira (students) will be featured at Healing Our Spirit Worldwide – The Seventh Gathering conference which runs until November 19 in Hamilton.

The conference is held every four years and is an opportunity for leading providers and academics in indigenous health, social equality and education to share initiatives, responses and solutions to issues that can result in positive community change.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa Art Collection Curator Margaret Aull said the symposium was an opportunity to showcase our art course tauira and toi (art) foundation programme, to the 1500 international delegates from 10 countries at the conference.

“The idea is to showcase our tauira and the arts which is an extension of the type of holistic programmes that are available within Te Wānanga o Aotearoa,” said Margaret.

“The arts is a visual representation of what the tauira go through in terms of their rangahau, what’s going on in their communities and how they’re feeling personally.”

“So all of this ties in with the holistic nature of the conference.”

Margaret said a number of art exhibitions involving Te Wānanga o Aotearoa were happening around New Zealand as classes finish this week.

She said the art works were for sale and two tauira studying Toi in Hastings have been offered work experience to work at the site to gain curatorial experience.

“They’re coming up from our Toimairangi site in Hastings at their own cost,” she said.

“They will be involved with putting the exhibition together and learn things like how to sell art and how to talk to people who want to know more about what they could potentially be buying.”

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is a principal sponsor of the Healing Our Spirit Worldwide – The Seventh Gathering conference.

To find out more about Te Wānanga o Aotearoa toi (art) courses and how to enrol click here.