JCDecaux partner with Māori creative business on public art project

A world-first partnership between the New Zealand office of JCDecaux and Māori creative business, Haumi, has seen New Zealand’s public engaging with a new form of public art. 

Pae Ātea brings Māori visual culture and kōrero to coveted digital billboard spaces across the country’s urban centres, to share perspectives and engage conversations in space usually reserved exclusively for commerce. 

Following a chance meeting between Haumi owner Karl Johnstone and JCDecaux NZ country head, Mike Watkins, the pair recognised the vast potential of digital billboards to present carefully choreographed, non-commercial insights that invite reflection and build shared understanding.

“We realised there was an opportunity to tell Māori stories, from a Māori perspective, directly to the public through a medium that hasn’t been used in this way before,” says Watkins. The company has more than national 450 digital and static sites, 20 of which will host the Pae Ātea campaign. 

Since Matariki celebrations in June of this year, Haumi has designed several ‘campaigns’, using the JCDecaux billboards to form a public art gallery – providing fresh perspectives as people move around the cities. 

“Pae Ātea is a presentation of ideas, thoughts, and creative excellence. It is a curated programme, carefully considered to engage, challenge, and build a strengthened sense of individual and collective identity. Pae Ātea encourages a moment of pause and contemplation, encountered through pūrākau (iwi narratives), social histories, creative expression, and commentary,” says Johnstone. 

Last month’s Tuku Whenua campaign shed light on the often glossed over history of Tāmaki Makaurau’s central city, which was gifted by Apihai Te Kawau to Governor Hobson in 1840, symbolising an enduring bond between Ngāti Whātua and the Crown.

November’s campaign conceptually presents a discussion about knowledge and language. It has been designed to be ‘gently provocative’ and has used New Zealand’s context for a conversation Johnstone describes as ‘universal’. The campaign pays tribute to culture differences and complex histories, but Johnstone encourages interpretation from viewers. 

Pae Ātea is contracted to continue until 2025 at a minimum, and is a gift of highly valuable digital billboard space from JCDecaux, and design thought from Haumi. 

“Many people consider billboards as a purely commercial domain, but we recognised it could also do much more. Like any form of art, our interactions with billboards are largely subliminal, yet they remain extremely powerful mediums, which capture the eyes of the city.”

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