The aroha is lost

First of all I wish to express my sincere and grateful thanks to Minister Shane Jones for the allocation of $2.3 million towards the development of a visitor hub in Kawakawa. This will certainly have a significant impact on economic investment and development in our small town, and for that I am extremely grateful. Thank you Minister.

However, the big disappointment for me is that it is not actually funding the original proposal developed in relation to Friedensreich Hundertwasser and his gift to Kawakawa.

The Hundertwasser toilets became a catalyst and driver for a proposed visitor centre. In 2010, I was one of the trustees who set up a charitable trust, for which one of the key objectives was to “provide a facility which honours, and pays homage to, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and which presents to NZ, and the world, a celebration of the life he lived in Kawakawa NZ, the town of his choice”.

It is, sadly, the reason I resigned as a trustee on December 3, 2017, because changes being developed behind closed doors during my term as a trustee, and from which I had been excluded, did not, nor would not, reflect the objectives of the deed of trust. I am of the view, and share the view expressed to me during the signing of the MOU with Ngati Hine, that the project has been hi-jacked.

I therefore believe that I could not meet my responsibilities as a trustee, as required under the provisions of the deed of trust, and resigned.

The rebranding of the whole project as Te Hononga, and the proposed changes to the trust deed, have yet to be presented to the community of Kawakawa, and I guess that this will be presented as a ‘fait a compli’, as clearly any suggestion of consultation would be a farce now.

My concerns are further reinforced when recently I saw a map of Northland which showed, on the east coast, Kaurinui, Te Hononga, and Hundertwasser Whangarei. This indicated to me that Hundertwasser was now taken out as the key driver/ catalyst for the Kawakawa proposal.

This in spite of the fact Hundertwasser lived in Kawakawa and gave the last of his great works to Kawakawa, and became a New Zealand citizen in Kawakawa.

I have been involved for some 19 years in this project, beginning with getting approval from the FNDC through the building of the Hundertwasser toilets, and when Hundertwasser passed away a mere two months after the toilets were opened, in December 1999, I became aware how significant his gift to this community was to be. He had, unknowingly, gifted to Kawakawa his last great work.

I therefore dedicated myself over the next 17 years to finding a special way that the community of Kawakawa could express their sincere gratitude to Hundertwasser. That special way was to form the charitable trust, with clear objectives for recognising, promoting and preserving Hundertwasser’s gift, his visions and values for art and the environment.

In addition, there was the development of Hundertwasser Park and the development of the Kawakawa Hundertwasser Park Visitor Centre — Te Hononga proposal. Even up to the time of my resignation I have had to fight to try and ensure that the objectives of the trust deed remained the key objectives of this development.

Sadly, Hundertwasser’s gift to the people of Kawakawa, Bay of Islands, and to New Zealand, seems to be no longer appreciated by some. I asked my co-trustees, before I resigned, what was the most marketable name internationally, or even nationally, Hundertwasser or Te Hononga? I did not get a response. When I informed a very close and dear friend of Friedensreich Hundertwasser of my resignation and the reasons why, he commented, “The love and aroha for Hundertwasser has gone from the Kawakawa project.” I am deeply, deeply saddened, disappointed, and gutted with the realisation that Hundertwasser and his gift to Kawakawa, along with his values, his aroha for the town he choose to live in, is to no longer be the primary focus of the development. RIP Friedensreich Hundertwasser.