Matariki 2021 was an internal project at Greater Wellington Regional Council with a simple brief: celebrate the week while educating staff about Matariki. After a brainstorming session it was decided that we would focus on the names and meanings of each of the stars, we would do so by creating a collectable set of Matariki cards, that staff would earn by doing daily tasks.
The design was rooted in the idea that Māori carved art lives in the negative. It is cut out of wood, not added to it, and we could do the same with planes of colour. I worked with the internal Iwi Liaison team to identify patterns that would represent the meaning of each star while also carrying the feeling of traditionally carved repeating patterns.
The same designs were made into posters for the exhibition space on the ground floor.