Pari Kārangaranga reimagines the wheku through neon and light. Drawing on whakapapa and ancestral forms, the illuminated works transform a customary Māori visual language into a contemporary experience.

Using shifting gradients of colour, the audience is invited on a journey from darkness into light, evoking māramatanga and connection.

Through light, colour, and form, Pari Kārangaranga celebrates the vitality of Māori culture and the continuing transmission of knowledge across generations.

Artist Bio 

Erena Koopu (Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Ngāti Awa) is a multidisciplinary Māori artist, educator, and performer whose practice is grounded in whakapapa, te reo Māori, and the retention of iwi narratives. Working across painting, installation, and performance, her work explores identity, cultural memory, and the transmission of mātauranga Māori through contemporary visual language. Erena was among the first graduates of Toihoukura – School of Māori Visual Arts at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) and has since become a senior lecturer and programme leader within the school. Through both her teaching and creative practice, she is committed to sustaining Māori culture through the arts and supporting others to discover and express their own creative voice. A respected figure in both the visual arts and kapa haka worlds, Erena has exhibited extensively throughout Aotearoa. Her work often draws inspiration from iwi histories, waiata, whakapapa, and the natural world, translating these narratives into powerful contemporary forms.