Captivating poem graces a head-turning mural in our City of Literature

Posted: Tuesday Aug 29, 2023

Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature was proud to collaborate in July on a special City art project. To celebrate Ōtepoti’s role as a FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ host city, Dunedin City Council’s Events team commissioned a mural, which was painted outside the Municipal Chambers in the Octagon during the FIFA Fan Festival™. It comprised one of many popular creative activities during the festival and contributed to the vibrancy and sense of anticipation around the performance spaces.

Six talented wāhine artists teamed up to respond to toikupu poem ‘Intuit’ by Iona Winter (Waitaha) and to seamlessly weave the lines into the mural. The poem’s visually captivating narrative lent itself to interpretation in this way.

All six artists created an artwork inspired by images in the poem, drawing a cohesive thread that united their works across the expanse of the wall.

The collective artwork will grace the hoardings for some years while the heritage building is renovated, and it is intended that the mural will then find a new life, repurposed in a different space in our City of Literature.

Intuit

Listen to quiet in the rustle of leaves

and ferocious applause from the seventh wave

see beauty in harakeke choked by convolvulus

and respect the latticework of a bruise

smell the sweetness of rotten fruit beneath trees

and ti kōuka flowers at night

taste the depth of freshly turned earth

and the honesty of blood

feel satisfaction at the release of a scab

and the delicious surges contained in a kiss

sense comfort in ancestral knowledge

and trust in yourself always

Iona Winter (Waitaha)

From then the wind came (Steele Roberts Publishers, Aotearoa, 2018)

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View the Instagram Reel of the mural

Poetry by Iona Winter

Typography by Kell Sunshine

Artist work by Aroha Novak, Devon Smith, Gina Kiel, Kell Sunshine, Miriama Grace-Smith, Xoe Hall