Horiwood's Blog

ATA TE KANAWA

HORIWOOD: For those who don’t know, what exactly is your job?

 ATK: Now hasn’t that humble 3 letter word ‘job’ come to mean a shit load of stuff? As the thing I do most of the time and try and earn-a-modest-living-from –type-job, I publish an indigenous magazine in a country (New Zealand) where our indigenous population stats currently sit at 15% but are threatening to increase to more blended varieties and near 50% by 2020 -ish.

European educationists advocated in the early 1900s that Maori were a dying race, so don’t they now look silly?

HORIWOOD: What flavor is your magazine and why… and who reads it?

ATK: I think the flavour is different for different individuals, age groups and races, but the Licorice Allsort is a branding icon we took on deliberately in 2007 to appeal ‘outside the marae’ and to “all sorts of people.”

I think people read anything because they’re simply curious. I can only assume mostly indigenous Maori people read TU MAI but once it’s out on the news stand, who knows who else picks it up? – hopefully other nosey people.

HORIWOOD: In New Zealand, you are a Maori (hori), explain what this means from your perspective, living in NZ? When you travel overseas, how are you then perceived internationally?

Hori is a slightly derogatory label for Maori created in the early 1900s, but fast track 100 or so years and ‘brown sugar’ is a sassy, more positive term that probably fits how ‘Hori’ see themselves these days in NZ (Even if no one else does..)

 As for travelling overseas, our olive complexion and apparent English accent is great fodder for being perceived as ‘exotic’. And I have to admit – I’ve exploited that in most places I’ve visited. Especially in NYC!

Where it was something to do with looking Hispanic but sooooo not sounding like one. Hey – Whatever works baby.

HORIWOOD: How has Obama changed politics and life in New Zealand? Has he? What about Michelle Obama?

ATA TE KANAWA: If Barack Obama has had a profound effect here, it’s probably the same as around the world in that his former ‘foreign’ name is no longer. Likewise he and Michele being coloured has normalised ‘being brown’ too. Ohh lets add style, dignity, charisma and intellect – cos yes we can!

Politically, I think non-coloured people have a new sense of awareness about coloured people since Barrack and Michelle stepped into our worlds, but that might be just wishful thinking.

HORIWOOD: What’s the hottest goss over there in New Zealand at the moment?

ATA TE KANAWA: In short –crusty white middle aged/spread politician resigned last week before getting the sack for stalking a Korean married woman with hundreds of explicitly crude text messages..

HORIWOOD: Would you ever want to leave New Zealand permanently?

Yeah – If someone in the Mediterranean would have me – I could certainly live in Europe for a couple of years.

HORIWOOD: You have an innovative Maori Fashion Show coming up, (www.miromoda.com), tell us about the uniqueness of this show and what it means for the fashion world?

Miromoda has been very fortunate to have the support of ANZFW founding director, Pieter Stewart. It is her belief that the genre of NZ fashion has yet to be realised and she thinks the answer might lie in Maori fashion designers. It’s exciting because we’re using gorgeous Maori models too so the opportunity to showcase to national and international media and buyers is definitely unique!

HORIWOOD: Who are the biggest stars you’ve featured in TU MAI magazine, and what did they reveal about their celebrity to your audiences of readers.

Well they’re mostly only big in NZ but model Grace Hudson spoke candidly about being discovered and whisked off to catwalks in NYC when she was only 14. However, soon after, both she and her family couldn’t handle the flashing lights and fame so she returned to school in South Auckland only to fall pregnant at 16. She’s recently returned to the modelling world and is as good if not better than she was before. I think she has been hugely inspirational and motivational for young people in sharing her journey thus far.

HORIWOOD: Do you think people are becoming more aware and accepting of indigenous people?

ATK: Totally – we’ve added colour to all those previously colourless rooms. Actually its more about who’s accepting who these days?

HORIWOOD: What is your passion as an indigenous media mogul in the making, and what drives you forward?

ATA TE KANAWA: Cripes! – I hardly even know what a mogul is – sounds like a bagel or a frog toy thingee. My passion is pretty cliché really, and a tad whimsical – just interested in people and putting things in front of them.

HORIWOOD:  For American, Canadian, Australian British and Asian Audiences worldwide, why should they read TU MAI magazine?

ATA TE KANAWA: Maybe curiosity about where and what makes people like Horiwood tick?

HORIWOOD: You’re known as the witty, funny, sharp, globally aware, indigenous focused savvy media chick… what training taught you to be who you are?

ATA TE KANAWA: Arrrgggh – I’m from a large family of 12, and have 3 brothers immediately before me so I think I learned early how to think on my feet, and to use intelligence when it was apparent they were void of it .. LOL!

HORIWOOD: What advice would you give young people to follow their dreams?

ATA TE KANAWA: I hate the term ‘role model’ – because Maori youth have always been told its what they need. The same message is rarely delivered to other race groups so I’ve always believed people young or old, should continuously develop themselves as exciting new beings, definitely not clones of others.

HORIWOOD: What parts of American culture excite you and turn you on from a pop cultural and political perspective.

ATA TE KANAWA: Americans I have had the pleasure of associating with have been candid, open and hospitable. NZ’s are raised on a diet that size in terms of political power, landmass and wealth is horribly excessive. By default, the USA easily fits that prescription, but my experience there has made me appreciate the American culture for what it is, for all its warts and for all its star studded glory, rather than some dumb founded, small town thinking perspective. A*

To order TU Mai Magazine, go here.