Exposure Lifestyles - The Good Karma Edition

Melanie Tahata believes in using creative self-expression to overcome hardship. The Kaiti Arts Project brings together young people who have committed an offence, puts a pencil in their hands, asks them to create what they want, and teaches them about identity development and history while they’re making art.

How did the idea for the Kaiti Arts Project come about?

Manu Caddie initially had the idea so I’ll take no credit for that! He approached me in 2008 with a proposal about working with young people who have committed an offence. It was to be part of a programme that would include decolonisation and identity development goals. My response (from memory) was, “Hell yeah!” and then, “Perhaps I can get them to listen to Motorhead’s ‘Born to Lose, Live to Win!’” I wrote up a programme originally designed to run over a 6-week period, which we ended up stretching into a year. Some of the objectives were to learn real-life practical skills, to produce and display finished artworks, to encourage creative endeavours that may lead to employment opportunities, selfemployment and healthy self-expression, to inspire confidence (by getting them to talk about their art) and to explore the DIY approach to art-making.

Illustrations by Kaiti Arts students What have been your biggest challenges with the project thus far?

Interview by Amie Mills Keeping the students interested in the work we are doing. They have really enjoyed some of the less time-consuming activities we have done, so I have to accommodate a 14-year-old’s attention span. Quite a few of the boys last year were involved with local gangs to some degree, so there were quite a few bulldogs and fists coming out in their paintings. One challenge was to get them to slowly shift away from those representations. One day I was very happy to see a small bulldog overshadowed by some large koru. I thought it was a good start. The boys we are teaching are often in a limbo between school and work, so once they find work or a school accepts them, they move on and we don’t see them again unless it’s around the neighbourhood.

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