Offsite talk at Ellerslie Racecourse Grandstand with Bhaveeka Madagammana and Tane Pamatatau: A collaborative conversation with Waiatarua

Presented in conjunction with In the image of the city , join us for an offsite kōrero with Bhaveeka Madagammana and Tane Pamatatau.

In 1960, construction of the Ellerslie Racecourse Grandstand filled the ancient subterranean lava caves of Waiatarua with concrete, one of many acts of irreversible terraforming to have taken place since human settlement.

Taking this act as a starting point, the talk questions how an expanded acknowledgement of the long and eventful histories of our landscapes might inform the ways we conceive of and develop Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, drawing on the deep, accumulated history of Waiatarua as a guide to how we might better consider our city and its future.

Get your $10 ticket to join us for this outing and hear a deep dive into this unique Tāmaki site.

Bhaveeka Madagammana is a PhD candidate and former Educator at the University of Auckland’s Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning, and a part of MĀPIHI Māori and Pacific Housing Research Centre. His research centres on the exploration of Indigenous architectural food spaces.

He currently works at the Waitangi Tribunal Unit as a Research Analyst. Recent exhibitions include Violent Legalities at Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi (2020), Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, and Slow Boil at Artspace Aotearoa (2021), Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Tane Pamatatau is an architect at Monk Mackenzie. His interests span the intersection of contemporary Western new materialist and Indigenous Moanan ontological perspectives, with a particular emphasis on architectural materials and their embodied connections to place. This extends into a passion for architecture that honours the whenua and moana – that celebrates the spatial conceptions unique to Te Moana nui ā Kiwa, and a commitment to supporting projects that foreground the relationality of people, place, and material.

Pamatatau is actively engaged with the interface between the built environment and the political realm, holding infrastructure and housing justice as central architectural concerns alongside a broader interest in ecologically appropriate development and the role architects might play as leaders within this landscape.