This weekend more than 50 indigenous practitioners will gather on Whareroa Marae in Mount Maunganui to showcase their art at the Toi Kiri: World Indigenous Tatttoo Culture Festival 2022.
Before opening to the public this weekend, a week-long wananga (intense learning session) took place at the marae, allowing artists to share stories of their own indigenous artwork revivals.
"Indigenous gatherings are what lights my fire," said Pip Hartley, a traditional tā moko artist who travelled from Auckland for the event.
"It's an amazing opportunity to connect with our indigenous brothers and sisters."
Indigenous artists from Samoa, Tahiti and even as far as North America also attended.
"I'm here to share culture, to learn and teach to mutually lift up our indigenous people," said Nahaan, a traditional Tlingit tattoo artist from Seattle, Washington.
"All of those things are important to our ancestors, descendants and something that we have to hold onto and perpetuate actively."
Festival organiser Julie Paama-Pengelly said the focus was around the shared experiences of indigenous people at various stages of reviving their artforms.
"There are some fundamental things that we share as indigenous people like our beliefs, how we connect to the wider things we do and the importance of our body art to our expressions from who we are," she said.
Besides sharing their own stories, Paama-Pengelly said these international artists were also here to listen to Māori.
"Māori have been on that revival journey with the language, waka building and moko, all those things.
"Some of them are from very, very small communities where 35 still hold the language for example.
"Most of us are minorities so it's really important to share the story and understand how we respond to and understand each other.
"Even within Aotearoa, we have Tongans, Samoans and they have a different story; they've come from their homelands and have a story we don't always appreciate when we interact with them every day," she said.
Attendees such as Tauranga-based traditional tātatau artist Iata Peautolu, said it was about more than just learning a few new techniques.
"It's to really instill a sense of pride and identity within indigenous people where colonisation has really affected us and still affects us to this day," he said. "When we mark peoples' skin it gives them a sense of real pride and mana."
Nahaan said these indigenous practices "need life" to thrive.
"Looking at the revival that's happened here and being connected to the folks that helped revive the traditions of the tā moko, it's always good to know there are other people who are also reviving these parts of our culture," he said.
Su'a Fuiavailili Lawrence Ah Ching, an Auckland-based traditional Samoan tattoo artist with over 20 years of experience, said these indigenous gatherings were extremely important.
"I've been practising worldwide – especially the UK and Europe – and it's a standard I bring back home to the community not only here in New Zealand but also Samoa.
"We're living in a modern world now where the art is still alive but we also look at the other side for the brothers and sisters who still need help to revive their cultures in the method of tattooing."
Paama-Pengelly said there was more at stake than just a few techniques or tools being lost to history.
"If you lose just one art form you lose all the relevance around it – like the knowledge and materials, you lose the 'going and the getting', the inks and making the tools.
"In all those things you lose a whole body of knowledge, you lose the reason for being where you are.
"It might seem like a small thing to people looking in but for us it's the survival of our people as people. As not being the bottom class in every situation that they're in."
The Toi Kiri: World Indigenous Tatttoo Culture Festival 2022 takes place at Whareroa Marae in Mount Maunganui all weekend.