A circular system of healing—The Piki Toi Project

Piki Toi cover

A lovely update on the Piki Toi project, with the book winning gold for Print Finishing and Highly Commended for publications in the 2022 Pride in Print Awards.

The Unitec Creative Industries team that produced the book; Paul Woodruffe, William Bardebes, editor Marie Shannon, and photographer Karen Crisp, are delighted to win these awards.

“This win was a vindication of our intent to honour the people and the artists covered in the book, by making it a Taonga, something truthful, durable, and beautiful that could be shared with their whanau. We decided at the outset to work with Soar Print to preference quality over quantity, hence the small print run. The book has proven to have lived up to our, and our stakeholders expectations, we are very proud of how the contributors worked together, what of we have created,” says Paul.

The book  was written and produced through a partnership between Lifewise Trust, Unitec , Waitemata Local Board, and Awhina Mai Tatou Katoa. The stunning casebound book was expertly foiled back, front, and spine by The Book Binding Press with Kurz foil metallic red. The cover image is printed on a clear acrylic dust jacket, designed to create the contrast between text block and the clear-cut acrylic cover.

A  book authored by Unitec Design & Contemporary Arts lecturers Paul Woodruffe and William Bardebes curates the Piki Toi project initiated by the Everyday Collective Lab.

The aim of the project is best summed up by the author’s introduction:

“The media constantly presents us with role models and heroic figures from the worlds of sports and business. We are not presented with artists or poets as role models in the same measure. Piki Toi is a project that seeks to create artist/poet role models and heroes from within a marginalised community who have experienced homelessness and incarceration, and who can go on to inspire others to acknowledge their own value and in turn create a circular system of healing.”

According to the authors, the project began in 2017 as response to the social problems identified in the publication Inside the Cup, which researched begging, or ‘hustling’, in the central city, written and produced through a partnership between Lifewise Trust, Unitec, Waitemata Local Board, and Awhina Mai Tatou Katoa.

Meanwhile, Lifewise was exploring the use of creativity to find alternatives to hustling and was setting up  a team led by designer Sophia Beatson to create social-enterprise projects for this purpose.

Original Piki design by artist Rob Smith

The Everyday Collective laboratory from Unitec approached Sophia and her team with the Piki concept – a paper object the size and shape of a feather and adorned with art from the street community to sell.

Over time, this evolved from objects to sell as an alternative to hustling into the Piki Toa art brand for artists who were either homeless or had experienced homelessness to sell their works under.

The book documents this progression and the challenges, successes and lessons learned from the project. Paul says he wanted their story to be told so others could see what works and what didn’t work, as well as honouring the artists and creating a taonga for them.

It is a fascinating journey with many stories, beautiful designs and artworks from the contributors. A copy of Piki Toi is available in the Unitec library or from selected booksellers if you wish to purchase a copy.

Martin Rawiri, diptych, original painting and digital prints