Scroll through Instagram or TikTok today, and you’ll see a massive wave of Māori carving. Kaiwhakairo are flexing their latest taonga, sharing tool hacks, and selling custom pieces for 21st birthdays or farewell gifts. It’s inspiring to see the art form alive and thriving in the digital age.

But while personal creativity is buzzing online, an important question remains: how do these individual creative pursuits connect back to our hapū, our marae, and our ancestral identity?

Enter Te Toi Whakairo—one of Toi Ngāpuhi’s foundation strategic programmes aimed at blending and sharpening technical skills with the raw aspirations of hapū to build, carve, and weave their own whare moko (carved and woven meeting houses). It’s about taking whakairo out of abstract spaces and putting it back into the hands of marae, guided by the twin pillars of mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga.

For the past 120 to 150 years, much of what we know about carving styles has been filtered through academic lenses. Take the distinctive serpentine carving style of Te Tai Tokerau, for instance. Mainstream academia accepted it as standard, yet often overlooked the deep pūrakau (stories) explaining why it developed uniquely here compared to places like Taranaki or Hauraki.

By the 1970s and 80s, formal carving education shifted toward standardized NZQA qualifications under tertiary institutions. While this produced highly proficient carvers, it also outsourced tribal carving knowledge to external classrooms. Why? Because polytechs and universities had the funding and people that hapū and marae simply didn't.

To bridge this gap, Toi Ngāpuhi has stepped up to offer an alternative: moving beyond rigid institution-led qualifications so kaiwhakairo can explore carving through the lens of their own hapū authority.

To support carvers—whether tertiary-trained or self-taught—the Wharau Whakairo initiative was established. Think of a wharau as a shelter: a safe space for carvers to gather, talk shop, trade techniques, and navigate the real-world challenges of the craft. More importantly, it acts as a collective launchpad to support marae communities rebuilding or refurbishing their ancestral whare.

Excitingly, this movement is expanding with the development of Wāhine carvers—a dedicated time and space for the wāhine carvers of today. Historically, wahine who carved faced mixed opinions and cultural debate. Wharau Wāhine creates a supportive environment to address those challenges directly. The goal? To one day deploy all-wāhine or fully integrated carver and weaver teams to build whare moko under the guidance of their hapū communities.

To understand where you fit in this landscape, it helps to understand two distinct concepts:

●      Toi Auaha: This creativity is individual artistic freedom, personal flair, and modern innovation. It’s the space where a creative explores their own vision without being bound by strict hapū obligations. It’s perfect for personal projects, modern art, and self-expression.

●      Toi Whakairo: Toi Whakairo creativity is balanced with atuatanga, whakapapa and tūrangawaewae obligations and benefits.  Toi Whakairo isn't just about making art; it’s about grounding a hapū’s tūrangawaewae through their tūpuna—their standing place of power and dignity—by building a whare moko designed by the hapū, for the hapū.