The Bigger Picture: The art of protest

The Waitangi Treaty Grounds has never been short of flags but the white ones outnumbered them all. Photo / Getty Images

As if rising with the morning mist from the waters of Te Pēwhairangi (the Bay of Islands) up the gentle slopes of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, they came in their hundreds. The place has never been short of flags but the white ones brought in by the massed Haki Ātea – the performance art protest organised and led by Tāme Iti and many of his whānau – outnumbered them all.

The banners were deliberately blank ‒ canvases where the future of te tiriti could be written, says Iti, and a chance for his era of protesters to say goodbye to their old slogans and placards and for future generations to create their own. “There’s a new breed coming,” he says. “I’m excited by it.”