Feed Life, Feed off of Life

In August 2022, the Refinery Artspace in Whakatū/Nelson (New Zealand) invited a group of young Maori artists to explore the idea of homelessness and ongoing colonial impacts over a period of four weeks in a vacant gallery space. At the time Vicki Smith was already working with Refinery to support their artists in using UpStage to augment their exhibtions, and became involved in this project.

Four local artists, two who were homeless, brought in works to populate a gallery and gathered materials for completing other works and providing opportunities for others to join them on site in an art workshop. The work by a number of the artists lent itself to creating avatars and scenography in UpStage.

Kai Ī ngā Ora was interrupted by an extreme rain event which caused flooding
across the region, including through the roof of the gallery. The workspace area was
hastily packed up and remained on tables until the carpet could be dried and repairs made.
In the end there was only one real opportunity for connecting digitally to other aligned
organisations, in a lunchtime session organised with a local community advocate.