NZ’S LEADING
What matters to our next generation of future leaders? Breanna Tugaga-Roger meets four changemakers creating impact through art, community, technology and politics.
AOTEAROA is filled to the brim with young people creating the change that they want to see. There’s no waiting around. They’re taking unconventional routes and following what they love. Even the smallest action can have big ripples.
In my 24 years, I’ve come across so many amazing people. It wasn’t hard finding four to showcase, in fact, it was much harder limiting it to just four.
Through the trails they blaze, they leave behind hope. Hope for better representation, hope for better understanding, hope to fill in the gaps many of us understand all too well.
Bryson Naik
Bryson Naik, 27, is a force in Tā maki Makarau/Auckland’s underground art and cultural scene. As a Samoan multidisciplinary designer he’s contributed to the city’s music, nightlife, art and media for many years, though Naik feels he’s only just getting started.
He had his first art exhibition fresh out of high school in 2013, curated by now Green MP Chlo¨ e Swarbrick. Naik is the go-to designer for cover art for rising and seasoned New Zealand artists such as SWIDT, JessB and Church & AP but his most important work may be the Pacific art communities he’s helped build, such as Raroboys and Period 7.
‘‘We all came up in isolation. We didn’t really know anyone else that was creative,’’ says Naik.
Launched in 2018, Raroboys sparked a shift in Auckland’s art scene, throwing events and bringing together gifted Pasifika musicians and artists who had previously felt isolated from contemporary art spaces.
In the depths of lockdown in 2021, Naik formed Period 7 with photographer Geoffery Matautia and dancer Tia Sagapolutele through online platform Discord. It’s aim, to connect established Pasifika creatives to students as young as 14, mainly from South Auckland. Late last year, the collective successfully launched a crowdfunding campaign, raising $10,000 through the Arts Foundation Boosted x Moana programme to launch a hands-on holiday programme for ages 16-21, focused on increasing youth participation in the arts.
As a Samoan creative myself, there’s no better feeling than being in a space with your own community, with artsy like-minded vessels of talent who just enjoy creating. While spending a weekend at Period 7’s base in Manurewa recently, I watched a group of 17 young people learn how to screenprint, creating their own design and printing it onto a T-shirt.
‘‘[These groups] come from being deprived of all the things that Raroboys and Period 7 provides for others, that camaraderie and having someone within your community that resonates with things you’re capable of creating,’’ says Naik.
Growing up, he says he was viewed as a bit of a naughty kid. ‘‘I was quite lost actually. That feeling of not having control over my surroundings or anything in my life, I felt like when I was drawing or creating something, that was the only time I had that feeling.’’
Art acts as an anchor but Naik says it also allows you to explore feelings and express the way you think about the world.
‘‘Growing up out south, it’s not the most stable environment as you’re often growing up around constant dysfunction and that doesn’t enable you to have healthy ways of expressing yourself, if you’re even able to at all.
‘‘It’s super important for everyone to have at least one avenue where they can explore how they work mentally and emotionally, process it and then make something out of it.’’
Period 7 is teaching rangatahi how to do this through the many forms of art making and design. ‘‘Without expression, there’s no understanding. If we lose that, then you lose the soul of the city.’’
Tamatha Paul
At 25, Tamatha Paul has already hit so many milestones. She was the first Mā ori wahine to be president of the Students’ Association at Victoria University of Wellington and the second ever elected to Wellington
City Council, at just 22.
Earlier this month, Paul was selected as the Green Party’s candidate for the highly contested seat of Wellington Central in this year’s general election.
Hailing from Ngā ti Awa and WaikatoTainui, Paul is proudly Mā ori. ‘‘My whakapapa is what called me to this life of duty and service, speaking up for what’s important to me, my friends, family and community.’’
The first in her whā nau to go to university, Paul moved to Wellington from Tokoroa to study politics. It was there that she found herself
inspired by
the protests and marches calling for change and holding decision-makers accountable. ‘‘There’s a lot of kaupapa I feel invested in and I think that’s like a lot of young people. We’re multifaceted. We care about all the things around us and we see them as interconnected.’’
Paul is known for her mahi in the housing affordability and climate change sectors, fighting on behalf of young people. Being in these spaces has come with its own set of obstacles for Paul and it isn’t as easy as she makes it look.
‘‘People think I’m a bit too idealistic... Countless other councillors and even the old mayor, you know, I’ve been called delusional, I’ve been called everything under the sun but I think it’s important to have people who challenge the status quo, so I think I’m good at that’’.
Knowing where she comes from gives her the fuel to carry on with confidence and, as a young Mā ori woman, she says these spaces were made to make her feel uncomfortable because ‘‘those spaces haven’t been made for us’’.
With the big election coming up, Paul says there’s no better time to get informed and get involved.
‘‘Don’t be ignorant to what’s happening around you. It’s time to wake up and get engaged in politics. It’s not just the general election and what party you’re going to vote for. Get knowledgeable about the kaupapa that are on the line, it’s 2023!’’
Sukhans Asrani
At 9 years old, like many kids his age, Sukhans Asrani loved playing video games. He saw other players cheating in order to win so, to
even the playing field, Asrani started learning how to code to hack the game.
It turned out to be the start of a career as a tech entrepreneur for the 24-year-old CO.
Asrani is the co-founder of a startup called Zorbi, a flashcard learning tool that tells you what to study, when to study and for how long. Launched in 2020 in his final year at The University of Auckland with fellow students Alex Zhong and William Shin, Asrani turned down a $300,000 job offer at Microsoft HQ in Seattle, US, to go all in on Zorbi. Fast forward to today, his leap of faith is paying off, with the app now being used by more than 50,000 users in more than 50 countries.
For Asrani, who is also a 2023 semifinalist for Young New Zealander of the Year, it’s too early to celebrate.
‘‘I want to build something very, very big. Something that makes a huge impact on the world.’’
Asrani’s early beginnings hacking games sparked a hobby that led him to create modifications and develop addons for games such as Minecraft and Runescape.
‘‘I didn’t get any pocket money as a kid. It’s quite common amongst Indian parents not to give their kids money, especially for digital things,’’ he says.
‘‘So I started making money online by coding for people. I tried literally everything you can think of. I was selling eBooks, emailing people from the Yellow Pages, I would offer to make them websites or make their website better.’’
He was only 13 years old. While his friends were getting part-time jobs at McDonalds, Asrani became a moderator on game servers, coding custom plugins, which were very popular at the time and by the time he was 15, he was earning up to $20,000 a year.
He doesn’t credit all the success to just himself though. Asrani acknowledges his parents, who he saw working 16-hour days to provide him a good life. He is also quick to recognise the many gifted minds behind Zorbi, saying ‘‘great companies are not built by the CEO but they’re built by great teams’’.
Moniola Chinwendu
For Moniola Chinwendu, known as Mary dah Fairy to her Instagram followers, hair isn’t just about style. It goes much deeper, representing identity, history and politics. Through it, the 25-year-old is telling stories and forming connections, particularly for Aoteaora’s growing community of young black creatives.
‘‘Hair was used as a mapping system back in slavery days,’’ says Chinwendu. ‘‘They did different designs in their hair to map out where they were going. Also, when they were out on the field, they would pick up certain seeds and hide it under their braids and wrap over it, then they would use those seeds to plant particular vegetables for themselves when they got back home.’’
Chinwendu is a queer hair artist, photographer and creative director with proud Igbo and Yoruba roots. Her family moved to Aotearoa from
Nigeria when she was 7 years old.
Chinwendu shares her visions of the beauty of blackness through her art. She had her first exhibition Mmekorita | Ifowosowopo last November and her work resides online through Instagram (@fairyxsynergy) and a website is currently in the works.
‘‘In New Zealand, we’re not seen in many places and with black folks we’re all so different,’’ says Chinwendu. ‘‘In Auckland, I noticed gifted black creatives walking around and just being.’’
As a dreamy Cancerian,
Chinwendu felt compelled to capture this visually, especially after the Black Lives Matter movement. She takes photographs that centre around hair, which to black women is sacred and ancestral, styling the hair into elaborate, sculptural forms herself.
Chinwendu says that the art of creating has been a huge way for her to connect to people like her, and is a very healing process.
‘‘Through creativity, we share our experiences and what we’re going through... So through that craft, we get to have a moment or a tiny space where we can just both share and it’s actually so similar.
‘‘When I do my shoots, it makes everyone involved feel really good because some people don’t see that beauty in themselves. I see so many different ways I can play with hair and how I could do that to amplify who the person already is.’’
Creating has also been a way for Chinwendu to find belonging here, not just as a black woman but as a queer woman too. She says in LGBTQI+ spaces she sometimes feels there’s no belonging for black people and that she has to seek out that support, which is a bit hard.
‘‘With blackness and what it comes with, especially with all the challenges it has – it’s deep work. But I think art soothes it a little bit, the toughness of what our realities are.’’