Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa 2024 has been put together as a non-profit event to showcase creative talent in New Zealand. We sat down with one of their co-founders, Sophia Kwon, to chat about how it all came about, and what you can expect from their event. Grab tickets here. Proceeds from this project will be donated to Gaza for the Palestinian people.
How would you describe Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa 2024 in your words?
Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa is a much needed opportunity for young and emerging designers to
showcase their work. We are a non-profit event bringing together Aotearoa creatives who are
passionate about cultivating the art scene in Tamaki. This year has been particularly hard on
young artists especially with the recession and current global events - and many creatives have
been feeling helpless and stagnant. This event has been an eye opening experience where we
have all learnt the power of community and how much passion exists in our young artists.
Who are you, specifically?
We are three young creatives from various backgrounds (dance, fashion, film) who saw the
need for something to happen. The Āhua team is composed of Nina Bailey, Sophia (Fifi) Kwon,
and Billy Blamires. Nina and Sophia started this project in the beginning of June and
approached Billy who previously ran ‘Rogue’ last year and have been working together towards
this ever since.
What made you want to put on an independent fashion week?
Aotearoa’s creative industry is small and competitive with no realistic opportunities for young
designers. This means that artists straight out of school are expected to have fully fleshed out
brands and products as well as the money to back themselves. There is so much talent that
haven’t left the country to pursue bigger opportunities but struggle to have a realistic career in
the creative industries. This event is a chance for us to experiment, go big, show off our talent,
make mistakes, and be able to learn from them.
It’s happening at roughly the same time NZFW was held, was this intentional?
Yes 100%. We saw an opportunity and decided to take it. However, contrary to popular belief,
our intention is not to slander NZFW. We acknowledge the amount and effort it takes to put on
an event as large as NZFW (This has been a huge learning process for us). However, we are
filling in a gap that NZFW doesn’t provide. We need accessible and authentic events that are
made for young creatives by young creatives.
Unlike NZFW you’ve taken an openly political stance. Tell us more about this.
We are in a privileged position where we have been blessed with a huge amount of support
from the creative community. Everybody involved is putting in hard mahi and donating their talents and time for the cause. Because we are not sponsored or funded by any large companies that have political alignments, we are able to use this event to create noise and speak up about what we think is important. Not only are we donating out profits to Palestine, we have also chosen to name our event ‘Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa’ to highlight how important Te Reo Maori is to Aotearoa. It is empowering to be able to come together and use our platform in the way we want without restriction.
What are some things attendees can expect?
Attendees can expect raw, authentic talent in the form of immersive performances with a wide
variety of disciplines from dance, to fashion, to music and film. We have really poured out heart
and souls into each of these shows and we hope that attendees leave our events feeling
inspired and excited about what Aotearoa’s creatives have to offer.
What artists and designers are you working with? What was the criteria to be included?
We are working with so many different creatives each show! The only criteria we had was that
our creatives had the same vision and passion for the cause and that they were looking for a
platform to showcase their work. Most of our creatives can be found on our event posters and
instagram page but there are still an immense amount of behind the scene creatives that people
don’t know about. We plan to make a one off magazine after the event to showcase all those
involved and how we pulled Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa off!
Do you plan on making this an annual thing?
We would love for the opportunity to make this an annual thing but we want to hopefully inspire
others to create events of their own for the culture. We have come this far with no funding - and
although it has been very hard, we’ve learnt that anything is possible if you have the right team
and right ‘why’.
