Journey Amongst the Stars

An immersive celestial experience guided by loss, navigation, and ancestral memory.

Journey Amongst the Stars is a multi-sensory experience within a suspended celestial realm.

Visitors first journey to the stars on a celestial waka to uncover fragments of lost stars, the torn eyes of Tāwhirimātea.

Inspired by Māori cosmology, voyaging histories, and the grief of separation, the experience invites participants to become wayfinders, star-gatherers, and restorers of balance.

Narrative Journey

In the beginning, Tāwhirimātea, god of wind, tore out his own eyes in rage after the separation of his parents, Rangi and Papa.

He cast them into the sky becoming the stars we see today.

In this experience, Tāwhirimātea drifts through darkness, his eyes scattered across the sky.

He calls out to the visitor,

"Will you help me see again?"

This experience asks the visitor to journey to the stars and help reclaim Tāwhirimatea's eyes so that he may see again without rage.

Act 1 | The Departure

Visitors find themselves following a karanga through a dimly lit corridor, whispers of light and breathe reaching out to them.
They find themselves at the edge of a mirrored pool, reflecting a night sky full of slow falling stars. At the pool, a celestial waka waits.
The voice of Tāwhirimātea echos from the beyond, asking the visitors to retrieve his sight from the stars.
Visitors embark the waka and ascend upwards, stars pulsing above, the voice of Tāwhirimātea tells his story.

Act II: The Journey

The waka “sails” forward through mist and towards a distant constellation.
Visitors disembark and enter a field of stars and an immersive soundscape, using a an interactive star chart to navigate through the space, they interact with different stars that narrate different navigational stories - each having a specific story to share, giving clues to the whereabouts of the eyes.
Hidden among the stars are glowing fragments, the “eyes”, embedded with visions of Tāwhirimātea's story. Visitors 'collect' these fragments as they journey, their interactive device of Tāwhirimātea's face and eyes slowly reforming.

Act III: Discovery & Offering

Along this pathway, visitors uncover navigation tools: celestial maps, pūrākau of Rehua, Kupe, and Te Waka o Rangi.
Arriving at an infinite domed sky the visitors find the resting giant Tāwhirimātea frozen in time, his eyes lifeless. A galaxy surrounds him, a whirlwind of suspended stars.
Visitors return the star fragments to the atua, his eyes glow again with sight.
A soft wind fills the room, the motion of the stars ignites in a flurry of life. A voice returns: “I see again"