The Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum will be rebranded Rokowhiria.
Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown accepted the gifted name from Te Rūnaka o Arowhenua “with honour”.
“It’s a nice short word and we should be able to say it and embrace it.”
Ūpoko of Te Rūnaka o Arowhenua by Tewera King came up with the name Rokowhiria and he said it was “one of the easier Māori words that you can pronounce”.
The gift was accepted unanimously by the councillors for the rebranding of the facility, but exactly how it will be used is still to be decided.
The rebranding is not necessarily a name change but likely an addition to the existing name, Rokowhiria Ashburton art gallery and museum - similar to Te Whare Whakatere, Ashburton’s library and civic centre.
Council people and facilities group manager Sarah Mosley said that decision was yet to be made in the branding process, which councillors would be part of.
Chief executive Hamish Riach said any changes to the signage on the building is a different piece of work, which has not started, as it requires a resource consent process.
“The gift of the name is to consolidate the merger of the art gallery and museum.”
“The signage is a separate piece of work”.
The current signage is for the Ashburton Art Gallery and Heritage Centre, not the museum as it is now called.
“Everything that we are doing with regard to the future rebranding will be part of the operational budget of the art gallery and museum.”
It was also confirmed King didn’t receive payment for gifting the name, although Mayor Brown said “you will get a cup of tea and a sandwich” after the meeting.
Ashburton’s art gallery and museum have shared a building since 1995 and moved into the current purpose-built facility in 2015, but operated as two separate entities of the council until they merged in June 2021.
To complete the merger, the council requested Te Rūnaka o Arowhenua for a te reo name in 2024.
King came up with Rokowhiria in consideration for the significance and role of the art gallery and museum.
Roko is the Kāi Tahu (Ngāi Tahu’s southern dialect that uses k instead of ng) spelling of the word ‘Rongo’, which is the Māori deity Rongomātāne, god of agriculture, abundance, creativity, and peace.
Whiria comes from the word ‘whiri’, which means to twist, plait, weave, or spin.
He told the councillors it essentially describes how in the facility art and history are braided together.
The council was considering the name was met with some vitriolic backlash on social media.
Comments on the Ashburton Guardian Facebook page suggested some in the online community saw the rebrand as a waste of money.
Plenty took aim at the council using “something most of us can’t pronounce”, and some went as far as complaining and opposing a ‘Māorification agenda’ in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, others supported the "beautiful, meaningful name".
-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
