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Creative: Threaded
Brand strategy and project management: GoodSense
Client: Produced for AgriSea for the Rere Ki Uta, Rere Ki Tai research project promoting the mana and mauri of soil.

Project brief

Rere ki Uta Rere ki Tai represents working in partnership with farmers to revitalise te taiao/our environment, honouring the connection between soil, sea and people, holistically.

By building a better picture of how to honour the mana and mauri of soil, Rere Ki Uta, Rere Ki Tai was developed in the aim to reignite hope and pride in farming, rebuilding connections between the people who eat food and those who grow it, and between farmers and te taiao; the whenua (soil), wai (water), moana (sea), āhuarangi (climate across time), and koiora (humans, plants, and animals).

Design response

This tohu was inspired by the weaving together of multiple threads. Raranga evokes strong feelings of unity and togetherness. It is the weaving together of people into their families, hapū and iwi, and spiritually, the weaving together of all of creation into a single indivisible living wholeness.

We used the weaving of forms to reflect the whakapapa between whenua, maunga, awa and moana as well as the weaving together of collaboration, partnership and shared outcomes & connections.

This approach was developed based off kōrero with Mātua Taonui Campbell, where he explained the importance of the whakataukī “Kotahi te kowhao o te ngira e kuhuna ai, te miro maa, te miro whero me te miro pango.” / There is but one eye of a needle, through which white, black and red cotton are threaded.”

Meaning – in essence, the mauri that connects us all, ki uta ki tai. From the mountains to the sea... the flow of water, of sustenance, of people and knowledge.