Kāuta / Studio Kitchen

 rapua te kai ā roto, hei kai tuku mā te tangata...  

Kāuta is an old-styled cooking shed permeated from Pā living. 

'To cook inside was 'tapūtapū'...

The Kāuta today is commonly a tin roof with three walls overarching a fire pit leaving an opening for the smoke to escape. 

From 1916 the native affairs ministry industrialised housing on Tūhoe land into ‘Farming Homesteads’ the deal was intended for immediate families only. 

This imposed the separation of Hapū onto dissected land blocks, where social expectations of appropriate behaviour & activity were monitored.

Overtime this led the Tūhoe people to build makeshift Kāuta (kitchen structures) hidden behind Homestead housing to gather and share in Ringa Toi at a time the 1907 Tohunga Suppression Act was in full force. 

There are historical accounts of leaders in Tūhoe introducing string quartets and debate with oiled fire batons lighting the space.

The Kāuta at the Tangiwai Moa Kereama Homestead in Ōwhakatoro of the Ruatoki Valley has intimately hosted Whakairo through four generations. Kereama (Mister) follows on from his Koro Kaiaho who built whare, shaped Rākau pakana, while maintaining farm duties and serving in the 28 Māori Battalion.

 The plight of Kereama now in his later years of practise is to decolonise aristocratic powered themes that address space in western paradigms — a history in the arts dominated by political control through fundamental systems of curtain theatre, museum institutes and white cubed formula spaces.

 The Truth, Malice may attack it, Ignorance may deride it, but in the end there it is...

Kāuta Kaupapa (themes) move with the Whenua and evolve with Whakairo... 

Kāuta Kaiaho aims to platform 

Rākau Whenua related content

in Te Reo ō Tūhoe

with

Modern Day Access 

& 

Technology.