Mātātupu Mātauranga: Future Thinkers
Join us for a day of tours, workshops, and talks by rangatahi, for rangatahi. This event celebrates young people and their role as the future kaitiaki of te taiao.
When | Āhea
Sat 31 Oct 2026, 10am–4pm
Where | Ki hea
Hīnātore, Signs of a Nation, Slow Burn, Rongomaraeroa, Bush City, Level 4 and outside
Accessibility
NZSL interpreted
Mātātupu Mātauranga: Future Thinkers celebrates rangatahi (15–24yo) and their unique perspective on the world. Get involved with te taiao-related creative workshops, tours, and activities, and then round out the day with a wānanga on how rangatahi envision a climate-focused future.
Painting the Future
10.00am–1.00pm, The Promenade
Dream up a sustainable future – bring it to life through painting and drawing. Work collaboratively with others to create a collaged vision of a climate-focused future.
Print Planting
10.00am–1.00pm, Signs of a Nation
Join illustrator Tayla Hartemink (Tūhoe, Te Arawa) to learn about stamp printing and plants growing in your backyard. Bring something from home to stamp or get creative on paper and fabric.
Fa‘atupu: Giving new life to old words (registration required)
10:30–12.00pm, Hīnātore
Join Mauatua Fa‘ara-Reynolds for this writing workshop inspired by the propagation of the aute plants across the Pacific. Participants are invited to bring excerpts of their own writing, or words from others, and use them as seeds for generating new work.
Registrations required: book via Humanitix
Beyond Be-leaf: Plant Stories in Bush City
10.30–11.30am and 12.00–1.00pm, Bush City Kiosk
What can plants teach us? What stories lie beyond the leaf? Join Curator Botany Leon Perrie for a tour of Bush City and work together to identify plants that are growing in our backyard during kōanga.
Holding Light: Slow Looking Tour
10.30–11.30am, 12.00–1.00pm, Slow Burn | Ahi Tāmau
Join slow looking tauira in a tour of Slow Burn | Ahi Tāmau – venture deep into photographic works made by rangatahi artists to discover how light illuminates stories.
Climate Wānanga
1.00–2.00pm, Rongomaraeroa, the marae
Indigenous rangatahi are the rākaugloss holding up the sky. This wānanga brings together young leaders in climate education and environmental justice to share how their work brings us closer to a climate-focused future.
Speakers to be announced.
Curator Botany Leon Perrie at Whānau Day with DOC, 2020. Photo by Abbie Dorrington. Te Papa (162348)