Maori village for Napier's Art Deco festival

Napier counci lMāori adviser Charles Ropitini (left), Sunken Garden curator Antonio Pronesti and plantings set to become part of a new Māori Village Art Deco Festival feature. Photo / Warren Buckland

A Māori village will be created in Napier's Marine Parade Sunken Garden for next year's Art Deco Festival in a move inspired by its senior gardener – an Australian with an Italian heritage.

Antonio Pronesti, with the Napier City Council gardening team for 17 years, took over at the Sunken Garden about 12 months ago and soon became conscious of the lack of anything Māori in the gardens.

Visitors, including cruise passengers, would point it out, and ask him why not.

So he called council principal Māori adviser Charles Ropitini, who suddenly found the answer he was looking for in his quest for a Māori role in the festival, set for February 17-21, the 33rd annual celebration of the architecture and times of the era around the times of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, the 90th anniversary of which will also be in February.

Having sown the seeds figuratively speaking, Pronesti was soon in the first stage preparing the gardens and planting a central garden with about 2000 flowering plants – red salvia to depict a fishhook in the background green of pyrethrum.

Ropitini, who returned to Napier about four years ago and soon set a goal of finding a stronger presence for Māori - both people and culture - in the globally-renowned Art Deco image of the city, concedes he hadn't thought about the significance of the Sunken Garden. The garden, meanwhile, was excavated more than 50 years ago and officially opened in 1967.

He wasn't the only one, for even city promotional material described it as a "hidden treasure," but as highlighted by the newfound gardener-cum-cultural adviser it had a "very Māori" appeal, and was common place for spiritual, therapeutic and healing visits.

"I've seen it," said Pronesti. "A lot of people come and sit here, just thinking."

"Just listening to Antonio changed the whole way I looked at the Sunken Garden," said Ropitini. "It wasn't till Antonio woke my Māori brain... I no longer saw a European garden, but a garden with a lot of Māori potential."

For Pronesti, there's a personal touch, enhancing the connection, coming to Napier initially to follow a girl and falling in love with Napier as well, to the extent of an affinity fused with the mix of what he says are some similarities between Māori culture and his own heritage in Italy.

"Whenever I go back to Melbourne and come back, I come through the airport I feel like I'm coming home," he said. "So this is home."

Ropitini, roping in help from such people as creative presentations guru Te Rangi Huata, is now working on the Art Deco Festival's Toi Deco Māori, creating a village offering cultural events and showcasing traditional Māori arts and story-telling, with walks in the vicinity.

Pronesti foresees widespread popular appeal, not only during the festival but also particularly as cruise liners start returning to Napier. "They would flock to it," he said.
"It is, said Ropitini, "an ongoing work in progress."