Two co-joined exhibitions open on Saturday, paying homage to the night sky and, in particular, the stars that appear in our heavens at this time of year and hail the beginning of the Māori New Year.
Pupils from two local schools, along with a group of pre-schoolers, have provided artwork representing their interpretation of 'Puanga', while Massey University professor and astronomer Stephen Chadwick shares his extraordinary psychedelic photos of the Matariki stars, galaxies, and the colourful remains of exploded stars.
For the past 14 years, he has photographed deep space using the same light-sensitive technology used in the Hubble Space Telescope, now available in consumer-grade digital cameras. Chadwick puts his telescope on a moving mount, and the camera allows the rig to track the movement of the stars as it takes photos.
So why do we celebrate Puanga in Taranaki and not Matariki?
A quirk of latitude has led to Puanga being recognised by our local iwi.
Puanga is given prominence mainly because some iwi struggle to see Matariki clearly from their locality and therefore look to the next important star near Matariki. That star is Puanga.