Sometimes, the Heart Yearns for Bananas
Sometimes, the Heart Yearns for Bananas is an exhibition and a series of community-led workshops by the collective Soil of Cultures that seeks to raise awareness about the phenomenon of forced migration across the Global South. Through a range of practices, including cooking, printmaking, installation, and community organising, the collective highlights how migrant and climate struggles intersect with ecological changes—changes that are synonymous with their migration to Aotearoa.
Opening Sat 8 February, 4pm – everyone welcome!
📆 9 February - 13 April 2025
📍 Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Road, Pakuranga
Banana Raft Building with Soil of Cultures
Join Soil of Cultures to create miniature rafts using banana tree branches. These rafts depict the survival and connection of migrants and refugees to their motherland. Participants are invited to share their migration stories and personalise their rafts.
Saturday 22 February, from 2pm - 4pm
📍Te Tuhi, 21 William Roberts Rd, Tāmaki Makaurau.
Back to the Roots Recipes
Join Soil of Cultures for a collective cooking workshop celebrating the Puanga Matariki Festival and their six-month 'Back to the Roots' programme. The participants will work together to prepare four traditional Asian recipes using produce from their gardens. After the cooking is complete, everyone will have the opportunity to savour the dishes. The event will also feature zines containing stories and recipes for guests to take home
Back to the Roots Exhibition
In September 2023, Soil of Cultures initiated 'Back to the Roots', a six-month programme in Whangārei to reconnect Asian migrant communities with their cultural heritage through the mediums of food, stories, and art.
To conclude our programme, we are hosting a community exhibition at the Hihiaua Cultural Centre. Come along for our opening event on Saturday 1 June, 10:00am.
Crops and Conversations
We are honoured to be part of the Asian Aotearoa Arts Hui programme this year!
Join us in Pōneke at Urban Dream Brokerage on April 24, alongside our friends from Liyang Network for a collective cooking workshop celebrating Earth Month. Together with the participants, we will prepare three traditional Filipino dishes featuring the four major staple crops of the Philippines: banana, rice, sugarcane, and coconut.
Solidarity with Peasant Women in the Philippines
Before the Peasant Month ends, together with Gabriela Aotearoa and SAKA, we are launching a campaign to stand in solidarity with and support peasant farmers in the Philippines. Get involved through our T-shirt fundraiser and peasant situationer focusing on the challenges faced by peasant women.
Climate Action Tai Tokerau Conference 2023
We are joining the Climate Action Te Tai Tokerau Conference 2023 this week!
Together with Dr. Carol Peters, we will be exploring how backyard gardening in Whangārei can become a space for cultivating resilience, abundance and nourishment for our families during uncertain times.
Open Call for “Back to the Roots”
Calling all Asian migrants in Whangarei! Join 'Back to the Roots' program and revitalise our cultural foods, stories, and myths. Let’s cultivate gardens, share knowledge, celebrate bio-cultural diversity, and create a thriving community. Applications close on July 21, 2023!
Open Homes: Another world is possible
"Another world is not only possible. She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” – Arundhati Roy
Open Homes proudly presents this creative collaboration that symbolises hope, strength and resiliency of a plurivesal world as we remember how to be a humble part of the biological web of life through the practice of intensive backyard food production.
This exhibition highlights the importance of having different voices and cultural world views cohering together around the organising principle of maintaining a collective spirit, making the local soil fertile and productive together.
It is an artwork that is the antithesis of the universalising ideologies of progress that undermines cultural diversity and suppresses all life by poisoning the land and enclosing people's capacity to imagine a different world.
Open Homes collaborators are Charles and Grace Buenconsejo, Marc Conaco, Kirsty Fong, Auggie Fontanilla, Dan Kelly, Tanya Ruka and Helen Yeung.