Kedron Parker
Kedron is an artist and enthusiast who long understood the role of art to engage communities in a sense of place and connection. Through her early audio art installation on Kumutoto awa, Kedron has been instrumental in using public art to raise awareness of our urban streams and in turn connect people with the perilous condition our urban streams find themselves in. This awareness and connection is critical for communities to be empowered to drive advocacy and change in how we plan our future urban landscape.
The hidden waters of Te-Whanganui-a-Tara – understanding our past to rekindle connection and care, for future generations.
As with towns and cities across Aotearoa, Te Whanganui a Tara retains a dendritic network of urban streams that continue to provide a path for water from Ki uta ki tai (from the hilltops to the sea). Depending on where you are across the city these streams may be fresh flowing headwater streams in regenerating forest reserves or forced to flow through darkened pipe networks that remain beneath our city streets. In other places they remain open but with uncontrolled stormwater pulsing in every time it rains. The flow in these streams persist regardless of the human induced conditions and these waterways continues to provide ecological connectivity for a range of indigenous and endemic species. Community connection, awareness and sense of kaitiaki is however challenged by the degraded condition that we now find these stream in. Similarly, the agencies tasked with ‘managing’ the stormwater networks to primarily provide urban drainage and flood resilience have become disconnected from the natural system in which they work. But times are changing and once again these cherished urban waterways are again becoming a focus of urban regeneration and renewal.