Kaitiaki with a K

In the 1990s, when the Pacific Sisters were starting out, they couldn’t import natural fibres for their work. Rosanna Raymond, a founding Sister, found a creative solution through her ex-husband’s film company. Instead of traditional fibres, they used VHS tapes. Breaking open the plastic casing, they unravelled metres of tape and plaited it with the same technique used for kikau brooms, usually made from palm leaves.

While videotape isn’t a natural material, it has its own qualities. It creates a distinct sound and shimmers in the light, almost as if alive. Although VHS is now considered obsolete, in Māori and Pacific cultures, the past isn’t ‘dead’ – it exists in the present. This idea extends to the videotape’s whakapapa (genealogy), which can be woven into new traditions. Culture is dynamic, not fixed, and these materials can shape new ways of storytelling, connecting the past to the future.