KIVA: WRITING FROM THE COOK ISLANDS

KIVA COLLECTION ONE: CONTEMPORARY WRITING FROM THE COOK ISLANDS
Since April 2013, Tawata Productions worked alongside the Cook Islands’ Ministry of Education, NZ Aid Programme, The Raro Dog and the Aka’oa gallery, The Art Studio, on a groundbreaking collaboration with a collective of new and emerging writers in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, to create a Writing Workshop led by Mīria George & Hone
Kouka. The vision of the Writing Workshop was to continue to build upon the Cook Islands history of contemporary writing.

KIVA Collection One: Contemporary Writing from the Cook Islands was written in Rarotonga and features nine writers, Maria Henderson Turi Mataiapo, Joan Gragg, Bobbiejo Healey, Ian George, Rachel Smith, Thomas Wynne, Teresa Tararo, Patricia Te Poe Cowan Metzker and Mariana Powell Schmidt.

Mīria and the writers gathered in Avarua to write – amongst the writers were mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers. Writers who were also educators, journalists, senior Cook Islands visual artists, pioneering performance practitioners and the 13 year old student from Nukutere College, Avarua, Rarotonga.

The writers were soon creating, investing in their own and each other’s work. The Cook Islands has a rich legacy of contemporary writing including the Taunga Writers Collective, Kauraka Kauraka, Jean Tekura Mason, Vaine Rasmussen, Michael Tavioni, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell and many others.

Launched in Avarua, Rarotonga, in December 2015. Cover Art by The Raro Dog.