Te Ātiawa artist Vianney Parata dedicates special mural on Kāpiti Coast Museum wall to her ancestors

Vianney Parata in front of the mural she created on a Kāpiti Coast Museum wall.

A new, bold and colourful mural on a previously bare concrete wall of Kāpiti Coast Museum links the Waikanae’s past and present.

Called He rau ringa e te oti: Many hands make light work, the mural is the work of Te Ātiawa artist Vianney Parata who has dedicated the work to her ancestors, Wi Te Kākākura Parata and Unaiki Pukehi, buried in the nearby Parata family cemetery Ruakōhatu.

Parata said the symbolic designs throughout the work referred to the flax processing, timber felling and whaling industries where many Waikanae people worked in earlier times.

The leaf-like manu (bird) design references the old Waikanae Post Office, which now houses the museum.

Vianney Parata hard at work on the mural.

This stood as “the heartbeat of the town of Waikanae for so long” with abundant native birdlife on its doorstep.

The bold red outlines refer to the awa (rivers) that become oceans and oceans that become awa.

Parata (Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou, and Ngāti Kahungunu) is a multidisciplinary toi Māori practitioner with an eye for blending traditional methods of cubism within a toi Māori design style.

Kāpiti Coast Museum leases the original 1907 Waikanae Post Office building at 9 Elizabeth St, Waikanae.

The stunning mural created by Vianney Parata.

In the mid-1980s, a utility extension was built on the back of the post office building featuring a drab, unadorned, west-facing concrete slab wall.

The museum committee decided the wall desperately needed decoration aligned with local history — Kāpiti Coast District Council agreed.

To seed the project, the council provided financial and administrative support to the museum in line with its Public Art Policy.

Museum committee chairman Neville Queree said they would like to publicly acknowledge the mural project support provided by the council’s arts, museums and heritage adviser Rosie Salas.