He Ao Kotahi - Pai in Palestine

The H.A.K.T website intends to document and preserve culture in the way we do best, by storytelling. So through an indigenous lens, using an indigenous crew, we made a ‘different’ documentary series. It’s a silent consciousness, it’s a “knowing” and it’s an understanding of why things are the way they are - allowing the organic processes to happen but having the skills to ensure a great story will emerge. The web series ensures that we are more accessible and reach a wider audience.

www.heaokotahi.co.nz

Paitangi is an artist who works with wood, bone, fibre and paint but whose preferred medium is ink on skin. One of the few female Ta Moko Artists of New Zealand, she brings her own dimension to this traditional Maori art form. Paitangi works from her studio in Paihia, New Zealand and also travels internationally by request to share her skills with those on a journey of spiritual and cultural awakening and self expression.

Paitangi Ostick travels to the Westbank Palestine to meet and collaborate with Palestinian artists to both teach about Maori and learn about the cultures and art forms practiced by Palestinians.

They trade ideas, disciplines, traditions and histories, highlighting the evolution or disappearance of their art forms and incidentally, their lives under occupation.

‘Loss is part of our culture, our history”... it’s a shared experience that cannot be gauged fully by standing on the outside of the cage and poking the subjects with a stick. Art either gives or robs life of meaning.

HAKT is designed to show both extremes.