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final evaluation

As a group we where trying to give value and respect back to the ocean through stories and legends from other cultures, telling these to the people of New Zealand so they would have a deeper connection to the ocean. In doing so we hoped to also bring some self-awareness to there own culture and believes. However, at the start of our project we did not have a clear aim to our project, we knew we wanted to incorporate multiple cultures and have some connection to the land or ocean, but had multiple different ideas. I think this was quite a big problem in our group work because we didn't have a purpose or sense of direction which made it very difficult to connect and get excited by the project.

Most of my resources were books from Massey library but I did also find some info online and at the national library in the form of a visual art. This research in whole lead me to a legend to tell of Maori culture, but also allowed me to gather a broader understanding of the believes, culture, history and visual media from this which then allowed me to construct an accurate representation of the legend in a way that respected and expressed Maoris cultures views and beliefs. I think this was because I had different views and ways of expressing the culture as well as having a past understanding of it. my most used resource was the book “foot steps of god” by Hana Hiraina Eribeck, it told Maori legend of gods from a perspective of Maori kids hearing the stories from there anti, which showed me the customs and ways of life of these people, her view of the stories and the kids responses to this. this was super helpful in forming my understanding of the culture.

I think as a group we did not set out a lot of goals until the end or at least we had different goals which could have been our problem. I personally set the bar quite high for what I wanted to achieve and felt that others did not have the same bar which made it difficult for me to achieve that. One part of this was how I would want to keep coming up with new different ideas to make the project better while the rest of the group wanted to get what we had said done. I feel this constricted my creative flow and spark for the project which I never really found but at the same time allowed us to finish on time and the rest of the group to not be as stressed.

Because this project was so self-directed we never had a clear direction to head down and I found myself getting lost and not being able to find a creative spark to get me going, so if I were to change how this project went I would have/ create a clear brief at the start of the project so I know what it is we where meant of be doing and I can go back to that whenever I get lost, I may also try and find lest organised loose creative people to work with so we can bounce off ideas and find a spark together.

After talking to the librarians at Massey library about my project they directed me to these books, I had a brief look at all of them and found a lot of them hard to follow and didn't know where to start. I decided to read further in to “footsteps of gods” book because of the way it was written it was children asking there aunti about stories which I found very easy to read. I found it really interesting how this book showed how closely all the gods were linked and the relationship between “good” and “bad” and the fact that there were less good and bad but more actions and consequences, you had to make up your mind.

After reading these books there were two main legends I found linked to the ocean and had an important message while giving and understanding of Maori culture. one told about how Tangaroa gained knowledge from Papatuankuku and created sea creatures. The other was about one of Maoris universe creation stories and what happened to Tangaroa after this.

Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, 'Tangaroa – the sea', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand,

http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/tangaroa-the-sea/print (accessed 15 August 2018)

Story by Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, published 12 Jun 2006

I found this source super useful and had a broad view or understanding of Maori culture not restricting to one belief or one thing recognizing there are many different legends and beliefs through the culture. the writer also touched on why some stories may be the way they are, which was very interesting to think about and gave me a clearer idea of why I am doing the project and what I am trying to tell. it seems there is a purpose behind almost every Maori story and that purpose or meaning is through ancestors and how they/we connect with the environment or some part of it.

Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal the writer of this article is a New Zealand Māori musician, academic and Māori-music revivalist. He is of Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tamaterā and Ngā Puhi descent. So I am confident that he has a clear and broad understanding of Maori culture and how to communicate it to Pakeha.

Idea

thought of another important communication tool: a dictionary/ picture book which described the definition of Maori words in a way the better represented them rather than trying to explain them with Maori words explaining them with pictures or stories. we could tie this idea into our project and in a way we already have, we are trying to show different cultural views of the ocean through pictures or stories. maybe we could tie these ideas together with each cultures word for ocean and how they are different.

i found this game in te papa where you where an alien getting put on NewZealand and you had to choose what plants and animals to take in order to survive, I thought the concept was interesting because there wasn't really any right way to do it, and it showed how we have to adapt to our environment but it could be more interesting if we actually had to change ourselves to fit in that environment instead of bringing things to survive in that environment.

“Glossary

The Māori words listed below are sometimes used untranslated in Te Ara’s English-language entries. They often have no precise English equivalents, or may have several meanings. Many are in general usage in New Zealand speech.”

“whenua literally: afterbirth; land, ground, earth, a country”

https://teara.govt.nz/en/glossary#whenua

Te Ara and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Evaluation at this point

at this point in time for ccc, I am quite lost and worried about if we will go down the right path as a group for our project. I realized that I'm used to doing my own projects and in doing that leading them (obviously because I'm the only one) so working in a group has been a challenge for me. I often dip a dart between ideas frequently changing my plan or course of action, but I don't think the others in the group work like that, they would rather have a clear understanding from the start of the project. at the moment I am not happy with our idea I feel we have tried to make each individual in the group happy so much that I am not happy and cannot see a way to bring all our work together for the final. I think I need to focus more on my part of the group work and get that done before I can consider anything else.

WEEK 3: task 2

Art is language

Shadow puppet if u want children to create their own thing

a bigger brain isn’t necessarily a good thing

Before there was a science to evolution we did believe that things changed and adapted from small things to big things or from worse things to better things

we then began to understand Natural selection was not progress just better for that environment

Even though we know that its just things suited to there environment there is this hierarchy associated to species with humans at the top

Capatilzim increases of production

Dynamic changes over time to suit its environments

At the heart of capitalism is exploitation

The idea that it will be overthrown by workers and a utopian society with be created

Because all things come from earth mother or sky father they all have spiritual value

Destroying or adapting theses things messes there whakapapa

Ability and need to label and make sense of plants and species has said to be an inherent property of the human mind from when we needed it to tell what plants were poisonous and good for eating, healing etc

asking my flatmate what he thinks the path to the future is: Lowering carbon emissions through experimentation and science.

I feel like science is warped by culture and society, and many of the beliefs that we have kept from the past even though have been proven to be wrong we still hold either knowingly or unknowingly. For example the evolution view that was talked about in the video, how originally we believed that evolution was a path for things to get better and higher up on the hierarchy, but even though now we know it is just a way of changing to suit your environment we still (as a western culture) see species particularly humans as higher than others, saying that I'm realizing its not just in spices that we have this view. I feel like we adopt this to places, things, people almost everything has this hierarchy in some way. I feel like our way forward as humans is to stop viewing societies and cultures in particular as right or wrong and less advanced or more advanced but instead better suited to there environment and not ours, maybe we as westerners need to try and fit back into our environment rather than fitting the environment to us. I think the global connections and desires aren’t actually helping this, just because we are all exposed to an “ideal” which is typically the same or similar overall locations and environments, so instead of trying to fit to our environment we try and fit to this “ideal” that destroys it.

Made me think about aliens, people with similar environments, and biological makeups end up so different, so what if the environment is drastically different and the biological makeup is as well. The life forms will be so unbelievably different.

I think in my group for my project I would like to try and get New Zealand people away from this western numbed view of the world and try to get them to strive to fit to our environment of New Zealand protecting and working with it. teaching Maori culture and views could be a great way of doing that as I believe their views of the world and environment around them are far more sustainable.

Idea: A game where you travel around on the water landing of different lands and have to figure out how to adapt to that environment if you don’t you and therefore the environment die.

WEEK 2: task 3

Write a critique of the way that your SDG is being considered. Remember that critique looks at the topic from different perspective, it identifies strengths and limitations.

Sustainable cities and communities

I feel like this sustainable practice doesn’t take in to account cultures history and ways of life. Sure you can sustain the life people and environment of a city but if you lose all the reason to live all your identity that place and the life in it would be pretty miserable, I feel like they need to consider that a bit more.

WEEK 2: task 2

Write two short poems that take examples from your list of words

Transmit, space and time, cardinal directions, Left to right , North, South, East, West, East-west, Count, Quantities, Linguistic, Colours, Big, Deep, Early, Broad, weighty, Living things, business, connections, Clothed, cover, rapped, Protected, Jewelry

Clothing

Identity, meaning

Protecting, covering, rapping

Embedded in the skin

Tattoo.

The dance of language

Right left

Up down

North-south

Choreographed Lines

Shapes

Sounds

Dance in front of us

Searching for purpose

A purpose we live to understand.

WEEK 2: Task 1

I feel like pakeha and westerners in pituclar grow up in quite a rigid society where there is only really one way of doing things and that's considered the right way. we often aren't willing to change that or try new things, for me its because we have grown up with one thing our whole life and our foreseeable past, we don't often see or experienced change and when we do we just use the same belief and practices on that different thing trying to change it.

in my opinion its comparable to dimensions. as humans, we see and experience 3 dimensions and that is all we have ever done. But if there are other dimensions it would be difficult for us to even begin to comprehend what those might be like let alone understand and interact with them if we where introduced another dimension and us where to ack the same with this new experience as we have with new cultures and people I feel as westerners we would try change and obscure that dimension rather than experiencing working with it and adapting our selves to understanding it.

I feel like Maori have been adapting and changing there cultures and way of life to fit the environment and resources given to them. where on the other hand the western world has been adapting and changing the environment and cultures around them to fit there own, both two very different ways of living.

Two ways to achieve the same goal.

WEEK 1: Task 4

reduced inequalities- I feel inequality has always been a huge issue but we have to remember that different communities have different views of wealth and riches, we should understand this before we force our views of wealth and riches onto them. maybe we are the ones who are poor in terms of happiness and other riches maybe we can learn something from them.

sustainable cities and communities- what does it mean to be sustainable, why are communities unsustainable, what communities, in particular, should we focus on. this could be pretty interesting could learn from other sustainable cultures.

quality education- what should we be educating people about and what communities need different education, is our education system relevant for today's society?

These sustainability issues seem to be from a western view, we hold certain values and beliefs as westerners which form the basis of what we think is important. I think while coming up with solutions as well as problems we need to think and try to understand these other cultures and communities because they will have different beliefs and what we think they wan may be the opposite of what they want/need especially because a lot of these problems come from differences in cultures in the first place.

WEEK 1: Task 3

-visual representation of harakeke

WEEK 1: task 2

Journal challenge: Reflect on your understanding about science today using a concrete example, such as pollution in fresh water streams and rivers. What is the purpose of science (i.e. what does it/ should it do)? How does it affect the way we currently see the issue?

Global warming

I believe that most people today respect science and its findings we are fascinated by it and it brings us as a community together especially because of our digital world. there are many laws and regulations for scientific studies in today's world and even more to determine if they are real or not. but because of how easily we are persuaded and moved by stuff we see online it is becoming harder and harder to tell what is fact messing with the perception of science. also, because we live in a world driven by money and success many scientistic studies are exclusive to companies or specific. Today's public I feel has a weird relationship with science, we don't fully understand it, however, we are curious to learn but are unsure what is real and what is fake because of how much media we are feed and the manipulation of science and studies to earn money fame or power. This is happening with global warming at the moment, the majority of us are unsure if global warming is a real threat or not because of how much media we are fed from either argument. Donald Trump: “this very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our gw scientists are stuck in ice” Arnold Schwarzenegger: “we must simply do everything in our power to slow down global warming before its too late... the science is clear. the global warming debate is over” I feel like rather than studied and science it has become more a publicity thing we believe who we look up to and see as successful rather. what we should be doing is listening to since in the way it was intended however this is very difficult because of the social media blacked making hard to disguise truth with fib, I think particularly with this issue we need to find a clearer way of validating science for the public so we can listen and understand the problem rather than understanding celebrities view on them. I feel we want are reaching out to the answers to global warming because of fear which may be why we are being irrational and straying from science.

WEEK 1: task 1

journal/blog reflection: Write, draw or sketch the main points you took from the episode. Also, take note of questions that it raised. These questions will help us frame the first weeks of the course.

Adapting to the environment with innovation and new technologies

adapting land to catch and drive off fish

Dug channels to your fish into

Figured out what stones and tools to use

Becoming tahnatphegua

Our history and artifact are both the road back and forward, bringing people together

All the conversations were done in garden with people working together

Civil challenge holding onto tahnatufenua practices and culture

paheki was a rock used as tool, carving cutting

As chief as a man you need to be able to build a waka or house its very hard to raise a family

we want to connect to our people our language and cultural practices

people Specializing in there crafts

Tucks map shows our knowledge and understanding or newzealnd at that time

Art is a important way of showing the world our culture and helping keep the Maori culture alive

Had to make rules tools when coming to newzealnd and its the same today people just trying to figure out how to use and thrive with the stuff in todays world

maori culture is Still adapting today.

(the link somehow took me to the wrong video but the material was still relevant)

NOTES FROM ACTUAL VIDEO:

taken for science

“Permit” for land so can go on sacred ground

Maps today are very much a god view of the world easy to section off and sell land

Why do artifacts or taonga end up in museums

We are the only ones who can tell the stories of our ancestors

Intuitive way of understanding the world

Ridged understanding of the world

To get in the same place

Understand different ways of understanding the world we would be in a better place

Took possession of it put it in a tank with chemicals and what not

Adapting their pattern in their mind for new resources, small trees lots of planks. Big trees no need for planks.

Organised mass migration

Ocean is life ocean is there highway

Stolen from the burials should at home

35 living ancestors between her and auntie because her farther tend her. scientists told us we are related but we already knew that.

CONVERSATIONS IN CREATIVE CULTURES

REFLECTION

I started this project wanting to make Tory Street a more enjoyable street in my eyes. To me, this should be a street I could skateboard through with ease, not having to wait for cars or other pedestrians, these views were built off growing up in a quiet town where I didn't have to wait for traffic. The further into my investigation I got, the clearer it became that I was approaching this with the wrong intentions. I realized that instead, I should be aiming to find out what the users of Tory Street need and want. It took me a while to figure out how to exactly to do this.

I started my investigation by talking to the librarian, she gave me valuable resources from the internet and actual information signs to check out on Tory Street. I gathered online info from the resources she gave in order to understand any cultural norms and views I may have to adhere to while observing Tory Street. My observations of walking the street had found that runners and young professionals use it the most, so I put myself in the runner's shoes, as becoming a young professional would be a bit harder. I ran down the street, coming to the conclusion pedestrians in this space were afraid of cars, blind corners along with heavy traffic were the reason for this. I thought this represented their thoughts because I had felt this way, but I was later proved to be wrong. I then decided to create a map of the street to analyze what buildings are situated where in order to draw a conclusion as to how I could benefit those who use the street with the least amount of implications, I came to no definitive answer because I was restricted by how many buildings and communities actually relied on car access to the area. I did, however, find a section of the road that would be best to work with. After analyzing the information sign at mount cook school, I had a new look on the street through its history and felt a cultural obligation to reflect this, I felt I had to show other people that the street was once part of Maori gardens which provided for there community before it was stolen by the British settlers. After this I had the knowledge and motivation to conduct interviews with tory street users, these interviews proved to me that people had little understanding of the street's history. I also found the majority of people didn't see the street in the same way as me, the streets personality/character seemed more important to this community than the traffic problems. Finally, after looking at an example of a similar change to a street, I saw the downfalls due to poor research/consultation with the wider community and realized the importance of this not only with those you are designing for but also everybody who may be affected by these changes.

If I was to start this assignment again, I would interview people who use the street much earlier in my investigation, trying to get as big of a sample size as possible in order to form a conclusion to what is wrong with the street through there eyes rather than mine. I would then go and talk to the owners of the school, shops, Resturants, etc to get there opinion.

If I was to continue my investigation I would look at examples of what other successful streets do and come up with concepts to improve the space. I would work with the wider community trying to get everybody who plays a part in the street, pedestrians, drivers, cultural or religious groups, homeless, young and old, the council, local Maori iwi and business etc, to further my concepts and hopefully come to a final conclusion in which I can be confident benefits, everybody, and reflects there views. This links back to the independent study we were assigned in week two of assessment one, a designer created a building that he thought was needed for a community rather than designing it through the community's eyes. I now understand the true importance of this.

The most influential thing I learned in this project would have to be the hidden stories behind every site and the obligation I now feel I have to express that particularly in the area of Maori culture through creative thinking. I will carry this on into all my future projects and will have a desire to uncover what lies beneath the surface. which I think is an extremely valuable quality for a designer. I also learnt quite a lot about myself and how without noticing it, I apply my own views and experiences to a situation, in a way warping my memories and reality of that experience, viewing something in a way that may be different to my target audience. I found the best way to combat this was to connect personally with the people you are designing for, trying to understand them, in a way becoming them to understand how the experiences of the same situation differ from yours. Its strange but you have to kind of unlearn everything you have in order to truly engage with a project. In this project, the community I would have been designing for has similar beliefs and experiences as me. I imagine it would be particularly difficult when designing for a community that is far from what you're used to, or maybe it would be easier as you wouldn't have as many preconceptions about the topic and could learn it through others eyes, either way, I will only know once I am put in this situation. I imagine this knowledge will prove necessary for my future design career, I will be able to create a design that is more personal and therefore effective.

(There are more in-depth individual reflections on each research task further down in my blog).

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