Archived: Taurima

Taurima is a series of light installations in Elliott Street features crochet-like neon artworks floating above the street uncovering the street’s long culinary history.

The concept of taurima means to offer the most succulent offerings to your guests, which in turn elevates the mana of your people. There is much opportunity to celebrate and express the functions of sharing kai, but also to celebrate the special native and natural kai of Tāmaki.

Aucklanders and visitors will see pātaka kai (food storehouse) symbolism suspended above the street in quirky fluoro-neon art created by Lissy Robinson-Cole (Ngāti Kahu and Ngāti Hine) and Rudi Robinson-Cole (Waikato, Ngaruahine, Ngāti Pāoa, Te Arawa). 

Taurima marks the street’s origins in hospitality. In 1987, archaeologists found Elliott Street was likely to have been a place of gathering food. There is evidence indicating people to have harvested and provided food here for the best part of 500 years.

Excavations found were,3 ketu and wooden digging sticks, once used as gardening tools and fragments of harakeke, flax for weaving, fragments of other wooden tools, and a shell midden.

Radiocarbon-dated hīnau berries from the midden pointed to the influence of early Māori settlers in the Waihorotiu valley around AD1400 to 1530. Source of this archaeological history here.

500 years ago, and equally in 2023, welcoming manuhiri visitors to your takiwā region is central to the role and responsibility of tangata whenua.

At the heart of this manaakitanga hospitality is knowledge of your whenua, land and moana, sea. That knowledge allows you to sustainably manage your resources and to extend care and generosity for all who have cause to visit.

Be sure to read the nearby story plinth opposite Darby Street which tells the story in detail in Reo and English. 

Supported by Auckland Council and the city centre targeted rate.