The Kuku Biochar Project at WOMAD, Taranaki
Te Waituhi ā Nuku: Drawing Ecologies artist collective were invited to do some biochar stencilling workshops in Te Paepae marquee, for the 2023 WOMAD festival. While learning about biochar; how to make it at home and its uses in the garden and waterways, participants stencilled images onto used coffee sacks and hemp weedmatt, using paint made from biochar from a previous demonstration burn at Parihaka. These decorated sacks will be filled with biochar and placed in the Waikōkopu stream as part of a stream restoration project in Kuku, in the Horowhenua.
Collective member, Artist and researcher Dr Huhana Smith, did an amazing public korero in Te Paepae marquee, where she talked about Kuku where her whanau farm is located and the ecological work that she and others have been undertaking to restore the mauri and the mana of the whenua. She shared stories of how she has integrated art, design, climate science and Matauranga Maori to enact action-oriented climate change adaptations for her whanau farm. These include transforming an old cowshed into a temporary art exhibition space, and initiatives such as The Kuku Biochar Project.
*The final phase of the Kuku Biochar Project will happen this Winter, 2023. Several 30m-lomg weedmatts will be stencilled with biochar paint and installed along the stream edge, to be planted out with appropriate riparian native pants. And biochar-filled coffee sacks will be placed at 25m intervals along this passage of the Waikōkopu stream. So, watch this space!
Special thanks to Huhana, Phil and Marilyn for leading the workshop.
Thanks to Advance Landscape Systems and Dark Horse Coffee for their generous donation of hemp weedmat and coffee sacks.
Photo credit Huhana Smith & Marilyn Jones
Words by Monique Jansen