For Whanganui iwi, the concepts of mana and mauri are fundamental to understanding and ensuring the health of our Awa. But, our current decision making systems depend on data that are based more on biophysical parameters, like water flow, turbidity, dissolved oxygen and contaminants like nitrates. It’s difficult to see how these metrics can give us a true sense of the mana and mauri of our Awa, when we’re making decisions about the use of the wai or of the surrounding landscape.
Poungawai – A Digital River unites toi Māori design (specifically Whanganui design) with digital technology to explore the potential for the mana and mauri of the Awa to be given a voice by creating dynamic moving artworks driven by environmental data from across the awa monitoring network. This exploration raises many questions about the complex notions of mana and mauri, how they may better guide decision-making, and what mana and mauri monitoring system could look like. We hope to provoke such questions and point to the fertile domains of toi Māori and digital technology for possible answers.
For us, the key is how the mauri in the data can be enlivened through dynamic moving artworks – to connect with each our own mauri to inspire our love, care, and protection of our Awa. While mana and mauri may be thought of as ‘intangible’ elements in the world, they become very tangible by the way they inspire our actions in the physical world.
