Ōpaoa Riverside, Blenheim

With a design process led by Hannah Broatch and Mason Rattray of Hatch Workshop, this Pae is being created with and in honour of seasonal agriculture and viticulture workers from the Pacific.

Hannah and Mason write:

"Often thought of as temporary visitors, the continuous yearly migrations of seasonal workers – some who have been returning for 15 years – mean the communities from around the Pacific are a permanent and vital part of society here.

We thought if there are to be 1,000 Paererewā around the country, and if they are to represent and reflect all who live here, that equates to 1 Pae for about every 5,000 people. There are now over 20,000 people invited to Aotearoa yearly under the RSE scheme, and so at minimum there should be a project dedicated to them.

A Paererewā centred on contemporary migrants from the Pacific ties to the history of Aotearoa, a country settled by Pacific migrants around 1,000 years ago. It may reflect on historial connections to the distant Pacific islands, Aotearoa’s current relationship having the world’s largest Polynesian city, and the future in which many Pasifika may be forced to migrate to Aotearoa as climate refugees."

The raised platform design emerged from design workshops with more than 50 RSE workers from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.

"Through collaborative discussions centred on sitting places, we were introduced to the typology of a raised sitting platform, known as a Patapata in Papua New Guinea, and as Vatavata in Fiji. It was described by community members as a rectangular platform, one metre above the ground, and large enough to accommodate as many as ten people. This typology was connected by participants to the Nakamal of Vanuatu, a broader concept that can also signify a meeting house (such as fale) or an open meeting ground (such as ātea)."