HĀKARI
TIMBER. LIGHT. SHADOW. TIME. COMMUNITY

HĀKARI Timber. Light. Shadow. Time. Comunity is a public sculpture that reactivates the Māori hākari as a living system of collective celebration, generosity, and gathering. A hākari is not an object or a form, but a social architecture in which abundance becomes visible through the act of coming together . At its core, it is a spatial and cultural condition where mat erial presence and collective life are inseparable.

This project recognises that origin from a position of respect and continuity, understanding the hākari not as a historical reference, but as an active cultural structure whose principles remain present today: community, reciprocity, and public celebration.

The work is situated in front of Te Papa, a site where culture is both preserved and performed, and where a nation reflects on itself through its collected histories. To install a hākari in this context is not a symbolic gesture, but a direct activation of a dialogue between cultural memory and
contemporary public space.

HĀKARI transforms the four existing plinths into a single work. What was originally conceived as four independent supports cea ses to operate as fragments and becomes a unified sculptural infrastructure. This operation does not add an object to the site; it reorganises its conditions of relation, gathering, and occupation.

The sculpture manifests as a single system articulated through two inseparable conditions: a material presence and a temporal field.

The material condition is a timber structure in macrocarpa, eleven metres high, clad in kōkōwai red. It remains in place for two years. It has weight, resists wind, and establishes a clear physical presence within the civic landscape.

The temporal condition emerges through shadow: a continuously shifting surface of light projected onto the ground. This is not a secondary effect, but an active spatial field where the work is completed through occupation. Here, space is defined by the relationship between bodies, light, and movement.

These are not two separate works, but a single celebration unfolded through two simultaneous conditions.
In the traditional hākari, scale was not monumental as form, but as social function: to gather, to make visible the act of sharing, and to transform abundance into collective experience.

HĀKARI carries that principle into the present. What once held food now holds the possibility of a public encounter.

Those who move through the space do not observe the sculpture from the outside; they inhabit it. The body is no longer a spectator, but part of the event the work constructs.

The sculpture does not end in its structure. It ends in people.

For two years, HĀKARI appears, gathers, and convenes. Like all hākari, it is not made to remain, but to occur.
A public sculpture that celebrates abundance