He whare kōrero, he māramatanga was a walk-in interactive installation that was less about what the art is, and more about how it's done. When visitors entered and experienced the whare, then they became co-creators of an original interactive artwork that aimed to explore Māori – Pākehā relationships, as embodied by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in a contemporary art context.
Attempting to make work according to the principles of te tiriti o Waitangi means constantly working in good faith, and making adjustments for things we don’t necessarily understand but acknowledge as being important.
As local practitioners, our kaupapa was reflected in this work: We celebrate and affirm the principles of tū tangata, whakawhanaungatanga, ako, and the puna of our creativity.
As an interactive work, visitors walked into a light-tight darkened environment with pressure-pads hidden in the floor. Different amounts of weight and lengths of time triggered variable red, green, and blue amounts of lighting for each of the four sculptures - which were painted in strips of colour - so that the reflected light created different perceptions of these colours. Different types of instrumentalised sounds also played when these hidden pressure pads were stepped on.
The presence or absence of who else was in the space engendered different spatial relationships, which in turn created different effects for each visitor.