Peata Larkin - Pekerangi / A Wall of Embrace
13,500 terracotta tiles form a 3,360 square metre wall across the New Zealand International Convention Centre
About the artwork:
In Te Ao Māori, pekerangi is the boundary at the edge of a pā, marking the threshold between the outside world and the protected, cherished space within. Peata Larkin’s Pekerangi carries this lineage forward, unfolding along the length of the New Zealand International Convention Centre like a great spine, grounding the building in Tāmaki Makaurau while embodying the enduring presence of whakapapa. Stretching across the façade, it stands as a contemporary taonga of welcome, giving the architecture strength and presence while enveloping visitors in the ceremonial embrace of a korowai.
Marking a threshold, this vast terracotta wall—3,360 square metres, 105 metres long, and approximately 31 metres high—holds its presence with deliberate authority and lasting endurance. Composed of around 13,500 tiles, it reimagines boundaries as spaces of ethical relationship, where protection means tending to what sustains us all.
Peata Larkin (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Tūhourangi) works at the intersection of cultural narrative, abstraction, and material exploration. Her practice encodes whakapapa and Māori knowledge systems into pattern and form, exploring the interplay of past and present, Indigenous and Western, and the ways these intersect in contemporary life. Larkin exploits the physical properties of paint and surface to create tactile, layered patterns that reveal themselves diZerently from near and afar, transforming individual marks into complex, living structures. Drawing from the grids of weaving and the celestial knowledge of Māori navigators, her work fuses traditional frameworks with contemporary abstraction, producing forms that are precise, vibrant, and alive.
In Pekerangi, Larkin leans into the architecture as both structural partner and conceptual guide. The wall shifts with the light, flowing like the ocean and settling like the whenua it rests upon, emerging as an anchor that draws past and present into meaningful proximity. The patterns woven through the wall reflect the generosity and complexity of Tāmaki Makaurau. The pātiki motif glides across the surface like a current, recalling arrival, departure, return, and renewal. Its diamond form evokes flounder shimmering and the celestial maps that guided navigators across Te Moana nui a Kiwa, gesturing toward knowledge systems carrying abundance, memory, and communal strength. The aramoana pattern introduces direction through undulating horizontal zigzags, reading like a shoreline in motion and recalling the ocean pathways that shaped communities for centuries.
Colour deepens the wall’s presence through earthy tones of paru, the soil and iron dye of wetlands, and the imprint of weaving practice. Browns evoke kauri, rimu, tōtara, and mataī, grounding the work in forest floors and the accumulation of deep time. Red enters with the steady warmth of ochre, a pulse of vitality, while green and ocean blue appear in brief, bright flashes, like pounamu catching light or water shimmering under the sun.
Every element of Pekerangi is attuned to the architecture: its asymmetry, rhythms, and contours. Carrying the memory of pathways and waterways that shaped this region, it threads forests and ocean through the spine of the building. Rising as a gesture of guardianship, in a city layered with history, it speaks of connection and resilience, becoming a wall of embrace - a space that holds.
