Kia ora! My name is Jade Kake and I’m a freelance writer based in Whangārei.

Checkerboard Hill is a story of belonging, dislocation, misunderstandings, identity and fractured relationships.

Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere is a tribute to the late architect Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa), a visionary thinker who believed that great architecture is crafted through careful consideration of people and place. This book brings together a breathtaking range of his projects, from conceptual dreamscapes to one-of-a-kind homes.

Rebuilding the Kāinga charts the recent resurgence of contemporary papakāinga on whenua Māori. Reframing Māori housing as a Treaty issue, Kake envisions a future where Māori are supported to build businesses and affordable homes on whānau, hapū or Treaty settlement lands. The implications of this approach, Kake writes, are transformative.

The friction of place and identity animates these daring debuts, with their uncompromising visions and full-throated expressions of rage.

Contested social obligations are unpicked in startling and original ways in these gripping novels. From an environmental chase thriller to a dystopian near future and a disintegrating marriage, these stories remind us that you can’t choose your family – but you can pick your battles.

With the fight for indigenous rights growing in both countries, allyship is more important now than ever. Gudanji/Wakaja educator and author of We Come With This Place, Debra Dank; Architect, lecturer and author of Checkerboard Hill, Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Whakaue) and Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga representative Kirsty Fong join Murdoch Stephens for a vital conversation on how people – whatever their background – can lend effective support in this crucial moment for our two nations.

Judge’s Citation: Checkerboard Hill by Jade Kake: ‘In this sombre, haunting debut, Jade Kake seems to have tapped into some urgent, boundless, can’t-look-away wellspring, and Checkerboard Hill at times moves like a fast-flowing river, carrying the reader along towards an uncertain destination. It’s a fascinating, intimate encounter with a woman with a bifurcated life, who is forced to examine the gulf between how she was raised and who she wants to be. Identity and culture, mystery, a fractured, fractious whānau where there is love and good memories but so much left unspoken – Kake juggles a lot, and she does so with extraordinary deftness.’

Tash Lampard interviews Jade Kake whose writing scaffolds multiple forms including non-fiction, essays and fiction. This session will unravel the multiple threads which are drawn out in Jade’s debut novel, Checkerboard Hill. Ria is at the heart of the story, a character who returns from Aotearoa to her family in Australia who she left decades ago as a teenager.

Jade Kake and Jeremy Hansen came together to create a landmark new book exploring the life and legacy of architect Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa), a visionary thinker who believed that great architecture is crafted through careful consideration of people and place. This book brings together a breathtaking range of his projects, from conceptual dreamscapes to one-of-a-kind homes. In this event, Jade and Jeremy walk you through images of Rewi’s work and discuss what it was like to immerse themselves in it.

Curated by Jade Kake and Jeremy Hansen, this new exhibition at Objectspace (30 Sep–19 Nov 2023) focuses on Thompson's speculative drawings as manifestations of architectural possibility and coincides with the launch of Rewi: Ata haere, kia tere, a new publication by Jade Kake and Jeremy Hansen published by Massey University Press.

Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Te Whakatōhea, Te Arawa) has been awarded the 2021 Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) and New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ) inc, $25,000 Writers’ Award for a joint project with Jeremy Hansen on the legacy of architect Professor Rewi Thompson (1953-2017; Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa).

This reading list was prepared as part of the NZIER Public Good Programme, which undertakes economic research and thinking aimed at promoting a better understanding of New Zealand’s important economic challenges. 2020 has been an extraordinary year. The global pandemic is changing the social and economic fabric of New Zealand.

The Māori Literature Trust is thrilled to announce six promising writers for Te Papa Tupu.In this six-month programme, chosen writers will work alongside a mentor to develop their manuscript and improve their writing skills to meet the end goal of having a publishable manuscript. Writers will also receive a stipend, attend workshops and writers’ festivals and become part of a writers’ community.

Ka tū au ki te tihi o Maungarei, e piri ōku kākahu ki tōku tinana. Ka rere he kōtonga, he hau mātaratara, ka hūwiniwini te pokapū a ōku wheua. Ka kapi au i ōku karu, ka hōhonu taku hā i tōku ihu. Kei te paetawhiti, e kōmingo ana te kahurangi ki te karaka. E māwhe ana te marama.

Kei te whakaaro au e pā ana ki te ingoa o te maunga, ngā hītori e poupoua ana ki kōnei. Nō te wā roa, i pōhēhē au i te pūtake o te ingoa i a Reitū rāua ko Reipae, ko ērā māhanga nō Tainui, i haere rāua ki Maungarei i te waenganui o tō rāua haerenga mai i a Waikato ki a Whangārei.

Sometimes I get asked the question: what is Māori architecture? What is Māori, exactly, about the buildings Māori architects design – especially in the absence of koru and kowhaiwhai, whakairo and tukutuku? Ornamentation can be a significant element of Māori architecture, but in my mind, this is superficial if it’s the only thing that is Māori about the building. Maybe this is the point made by Modernism.

As I make my daily pilgrimage along the shore at Pārua, Whangārei-Terenga-Parāoa, during the COVID-19 lockdown here in Aotearoa, I think about the shifting tides. Tai timu, tai pari. Some days, the sea withdraws and scrapes over the shore, the tidal flats pockmarked and laid bare; other times the sea laps against the seawall, the sand swallowed whole, barely visible beneath the surface of water made hazy through constant motion.

We gather on the deck of Hīhīaua Cultural Centre in Whangārei, named for an ancestral fishing village, a māhinga kai for hīhī and aua. The building itself sits on reclaimed land, 300 metres or so from the original site, taken under the Whangārei Harbour Act 1907. There are familiar faces, kihi and a strong hau kāinga turnout, most gathered are Māori. As we comment on hapū politics and local gossip, grey clouds threaten, and we’re grateful for a break in the rain and the unpredictable spring weather.