Artwork blessed in Dannevirke mental health and addiction service

Cherry Te Peeti-Tapurau talks about her panel depicting the Ruahine. Photo / Leanne Warr

When Cherry Te Peeti-Tapurau was asked to create art for Dannevirke's community mental health and addiction service, she was honoured.

A blessing for the work was done by Tamai Nicholson in a special ceremony early on Monday.

Tamai Nicholson (with Cherry), performed the karakia. Photo / Leanne Warr

Te Peeti-Tapurau said she was approached by locality manager Jacqui Hori for the artwork.

"I felt it was needed for our people, Māori and non-Māori, in this space."

She said she had to come up with a concept and settled on something around it being a place of healing.

"To identify who we were and how strong we are, which I feel sometimes has been left to sit in the background."

The Dannevirke-based artist worked in a medium of paint and fabrics and included a whakatauki.

She said the whakatauki, which could be seen as people walked in the door, was a reminder to those using the service that they were not alone.

"We walk with internal hurt - unhappiness that people can't see. We need to identify that within ourselves. Once we do that, then we can heal. But understand that we're all the same in having these components."

Te Peeti-Tapurau had also done a panel using a collage of fabrics to depict the Ruahine Ranges.

She said she had walked the maunga a lot, and some of the things she felt she wanted to include in the piece were so that the whānau "could look on that and see the beauty of her".

There were small panels which she wanted people to interpret in their own way.

"The little pieces that are scattered around on the walls, they're our tūpuna. Not just mine. I'm just about seeing what you see in that art.

"They're our tūpuna, to remind you that they're always beside you and you're not alone."

The water feature with the pounamu has been designed to be touched. Photo / Leanne Warr

The final piece was a water feature with pounamu.

Te Peeti-Tapurau, a pounamu carver, said she understood it very well.

"It grounds you. It heals you. It will settle the space."

Hori thanked all those who came along to help them celebrate and mark the occasion for all the whānau whaiora who would come to the facility.

"This is huge."

Dr Stacey Wilson, who was operations lead for community mental health across the district, said they couldn't thank Cherry enough.

"You've transformed this space."

She said it was a "big day, really", as a couple of years ago they only had a couple of nurses and a social worker managing the facility, "reacting to all the crises around this community".

"Today, we have 14 full time equivalent staff members and a team that's diverse and incredibly dedicated to this area as well."

Wilson also acknowledged Jacqui Hori for putting the space together, not just in terms of the atmosphere and the environment, but also the people that worked there.

Clinical programme lead Dr Stacey Wilson (with Jacqui Hori, left) said the space had been transformed and thanked Cherry for her work. Photo / Leanne Warr

The facility, which provided services including assessment, treatment, education, crisis prevention and support for adults with mental illness in the Tararua district, was given a revamp and completed earlier this year.