HNI are having a kite-flying day in celebration of Matariki, the Maori winter solstice. As part of this we have had two students, Lola and Chloe, use flax to create a manutukutuku or traditional maori kite. It's shape was copied from designs used in Aotearoa's past, including some manutukutuku's contained in the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, collection.
The making caused some sore hands and, over three days, the flax dried out and shrank. You can see this in the tightness of the weave in the early photo compared to the finished article.
This box kite is yet to be finished but we are expecting big things from it- it is 1.8m long and
0.6m wide. It has 30m of string in its construction. This has been used to bind it together.
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