Three people sit down in a marae to talk. A camera filming them can be seen partially off-screen

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho

For a long time, museums and archival institutions have been a place where our taonga have been locked away; disconnected from the places and people whose stories they tell. Often they are hidden away in private and public connections, slowly trying to find the right home again.

And here we are, often desperate to have a relationship with these taonga, with our kōrero tuku iho. But the world of museums and archives isn’t easy to navigate, and sometimes accessing our mātauranga Māori can feel impossible.

Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho is a five-part series looking at the relationships we have as Māori with our taonga today, and with the practice of archiving. How can we gain access to our taonga, how can we breathe new life in these connections, and what do we dream of for the future of taonga care?

– Kahu Kutia

The first episode goes live on Friday 12 August, and each episode will follow every Friday after that. Watch the trailer below.

This series is directed and produced by Kahu Kutia, and hosted by storyteller and pūoro practitioner Khali Meari.

View the Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho playlist on YouTube (after August 12)

*“Ngā taonga tuku iho” refers to the continuing histories of cultural artefacts.

Isaac Te Awa looks at the person interviewing him, who is behind the camera

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho #1: Lost in the Colonisation Machine

Check out some early taonga Māori in Te Papa’s collections and hear how they got to be here. Spoiler alert: It usually wasn’t a good story.

A woman stands looking directly into the camera. The camera is looking up at her

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho #2: You Are It, So Live It

We meet Keri-Mei Zagrobelna (Te Āti Awa, Te Whānau-a-Apanui), a jewellery maker in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Keri-Mei talks about her history with the collections at Te Papa, which spans all the way back to the work of her kuia.

A man stands looking directly into the camera in the Ngā Taonga archives, flanked by shelving

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho #3: Tukuna Kia Rere

Khali meets up with Maimoa Toataua-Wallace, a staff member at Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. Ngā Taonga is home of audiovisual archiving in Aotearoa. Movies, sound recordings, home videos, television, songs, anything to do with the audiovisual world, you can probably find it here!

Two women stand talking in a museum storeroom, surrounded by storage cabinets

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho #4: Repatriation

Khali’s whakaaro (thoughts) turn towards all the ways our taonga might be brought home, to Aotearoa, and to their communities. Khali meets up with Amber Aranui, a researcher and a kaimahi at Te Papa in the repatriation team.

A woman stands in front of a marae looking into the camera

Watch: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho #5: Kaihahu Mahara

Khali has one more question. When our taonga are cared for in and amongst the communities that they come from, what does this look like? How is it different from contemporary museum practices? And what tools can whānau use to take taonga care in to their own hands?