Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa - June Joy

In the third installment of our Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa story, we find ourselves seized by the echo chamber. A space where the glamour is loud, the pressure hits harder and the line between opportunity and exploitation becomes dangerously thin.

This is not your hero’s journey. It’s a mirror held up to an industry that grooms and consumes. Where control is dressed up as mentorship, and creativity is traded like currency. Yet, we find ourselves returning. Not because it’s easy, but because it matters. Our stories matter.

We give everything because we know, every season of Āhua, that this might be the last time we get to make this stand. We’re a community of young, scrappy, and hungry creatives that show up to the arena seemingly ill-equipped and eyes bigger than our stomachs.

Every show this August 22nd – 30th is more than just a runway, it’s a declaration. It’s a stand for what we value, what we protect, and what we carry forward as a community.

Runway 13 - June Joy

Designer: June Joy

This solo show with Āhua is a continuation of the first solo show in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Pōneke, titled Birth. The second translation, Baptism, delves deeper into the concept of the weaponisation beauty, exploring the intertwining of purity-pollution and decay. Throughout the work, the dark divine feminine is a recurring theme. Baptism seeks to enhance this by incorporating the dark divine masculine, both in conjunction with the divinity of the human experience.