B&A | Aronui Arts Festival
Dream Girls Collective recently completed their largest mural to date during the Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival in Rotorua, New Zealand.
The mural is 7 stories high and is a depiction of Mākereti Papakura, Te Arawa, Tūhourangi iwi (1873 -1930). Mākereti was a famous tourist guide at Whakarewarewa thermal valley in Rotorua and the first Māori woman to attend Oxford University, with numerous achievements in literature. Her adornments and clothing are a representation of the two worlds she straddled between her roots in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and her life abroad living in England.
Logistically the wall presented many challenges, requiring the transportation and installation of a 30ft suspended swing stage, which led the Dream Girls to attain a specific working at heights certification to operate. Additionally, the roof of the building is home to several cellphone towers which had to be de-activated each day to limit their exposure to electromagnetic radiation.