Past Event

Wednesday 28 November, 5:30pm
Dunningham Suite, 4th Floor, Dunedin City Library
230 Moray Pl, Dunedin, 9016

5:30pm – Meet at Blue Oyster to view Māori Girl by Ayesha Green over refreshments.
5:50pm – Hikoi to the Dunedin City Public Library
6:00pm – Panel Discussion begins
7:30pm – Finish

Professor Ruth Fitzgerald is a professor of anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at University of Otago, Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo. Her research interests are in the disciplinary subfield of medical anthropology, in which she takes a sociocultural approach. Her work draws its inspiration from a deep commitment to the study of health and illness in its social and political context. Ruth's work is also methodologically flexible as she collaborates in 'hard' as well as social science research.

Janine Kapa (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is the Deputy Chief Executive: Māori Development/Kaitohutohu at Otago Polytechnic. Alongside her team, Janine’s role is to provide strategic leadership, advice and guidance to the Polytechnic on all matters pertaining to its Māori Strategic Framework.
Janine has been passionately involved in Māori education for over 25 years; in the compulsory and tertiary sectors, from the classroom to the board room, regionally and nationally. With a background also in social research, project management, communications and strategic development, Janine co-founded a bicultural communications consultancy in 1999, was Ngāi Tahu Education Manager (2003-2005) and has held Māori leadership roles at the University of Otago (2007-2017). Janine is also a Director on a number of local boards and trusts in the not-for-profit sector.

Suzanne Menzies-Culling has been working as an adult educator since the early 1980s and is the Director of Dunedin based consultancy Tauiwi Solutions. In the 1990s we pioneered decolonisation workshops for Pakeha and other Tauiwi peoples which focused on exploring how issues of colonisation affected Pakeha and other Tauiwi in the present day. The aim was to learn from this how to fashion a new and positive response to life in Aotearoa/NZ in the 21st Century. 
A founding member of Freedom Roadworks, a family based community group consisting of Maori, Samoan, Tokelau/Tongan, Cook Island and Pakeha families, based in Dunedin; Suzanne also helped form Te Whanau a Matariki, a Dunedin based group that was active in the Nuclear Free and independent Pacific Movement, and was a member of the International Black Women’s Cross-Cultural Studies Institute, New York. Over the past 30 years Suzanne has spoken at national and international conferences and workshops on issues of justice and peace in New Zealand. 

Tia Pohatu: I descend from the people of Rongowhakaata and Ngāi Tāmanuhiri. I have completed a Masters in Museum Cultural and Heritage studies in 2017 which focused on Māori historical narratives within the museum. My main area of interest is in Māori histories of resistance and persistence and Māori photography. Currently I am researching my own whakapapa.

Bridget Riggir-Cuddy studied Art History and Media Studies at the University of Auckland and in 2016 completed an MFA at Elam School of Fine Arts. From 2015 - 2017 Bridget was a co-director at RM gallery and interim Curatorial Assistant at Artspace NZ in 2017, where she became Assistant Curator for 2018. Bridget has worked independently on curatorial and editorial projects over the last four years, including On the Grounds with Misal Adnan Yildiz (2017), online publication Bodies in the Market and Bodies and The Conversational Research Hui both as part of The Physics Room Blue Oyster Emerging Curators programme (2016). Bridget is a founding member of the newly opened Samoa House Library, an alternative fine arts library and education platform based on K Road, Auckland.

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This Public Programme sits accompanies Māori Girl, a new solo exhibition by Ōtepoti-based artist, Ayesha Green. For more information about the exhibition, visit our website: 
http://blueoyster.org.nz/exhibitions/ayesha-green