A Space to Plan, a Place to Be – A Museum of Relationships

We urgently need to reimagine how we currently live, but what are the spaces needed in order to do such reimagining? In ways which are just - not only for the climate but also for people?

What is needed now – more than ever – is an institution that creates space for addressing this social and spatial crisis, taking precedence from Indigenous ways of belonging to our environments. A place for planning and discussion, to define our way forward and that supports a new way of imagining ourselves within the world. Within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, this Indigenous ontology understands the environment as a living ancestor, as part of who you are. Our proposal imagines a new institution where we are the collection in its possession. A museum of relationships with the world as a living entity, as whānau / family.

Our proposal is a space defined by mana whenua / Indigenous people with authority of a territory, together with local communities who locate in their environment two significant points tied together by a distance. Tracing an orbit creates an ellipse, a place in the landscape reclaimed as a centre of Indigenous sovereignty and a renewed relationship with these ecological and natural systems.

Project Team

Julian James-Brown, Nick Denton, Amelia Blundell

Project Name

A Space to Plan, a Place to Be – A Museum of Relationships

Team Location

Aotearoa New Zealand, Wellington

Category

Architecture & Design