West Harbour Arts Charitable Trust 2025 Artist-in-Residence Beau Cotton (Ngāi Te Rangi), of Port Chalmers, has been guiding tamariki to transform found objects into artworks.
The resulting pieces were displayed in an exhibition at Port Chalmers School on Sunday.
During a series of workshops, Cotton shared his skills with pupils from Port Chalmers Kindergarten, Pioneers Koputai early childhood centre, Pūrākaunui School and Port Chalmers School, showing them how to turn recycled materials into art.
"The children have been exploring taonga, or taoka, which is treasure, treasure finding."
Cotton gave each child a small denim pouch made from recycled jeans.
"I made about roughly 200 of these and basically gifted these to the children.
"Their first mission was to find treasures out in the world."
Once they had collected a range of items, he helped the pupils transform them into wearable sculptures and other creations.
"Elevating the discarded, basically."
Using a piece of cord, the children created items such as necklaces, bolo ties, cat toy danglers, belts or even musical instruments. Some imbued the artworks they created with personal meaning.
One child who created a necklace from Nerf bullets said the piece reminded them of playing with their uncle.
Another incorporated the first pack of mints she bought with money her parents gave her into the necklace she created.
"Some of the objects are like really, really charged and quite loaded objects for some kids.
"And some kids were just kind of like, ‘I just picked this up because I liked it', and that is cool as well," Cotton said.
Pupil Mo Hanfling used a tiny cheese grater and two duck figures he found on the road to make his neckpiece, narrowing down to a few select items.
"I found quite a lot but I just decided to make it smaller."
Pupil Rex Noronha incorporated a seal vertebra, a small figure, shells and coral into a bolo tie.
He said it was fun hunting for bits and pieces.
"Most of them, I mean the coral and seal stuff, that is all from the beach."
Pupil Kodee Holland uncovered a large decorated washing machine drum in the bush, which he turned into a type of percussion piece.
West Harbour Arts Charitable Trust chairwoman Caro Gilbert said this was the trust's 27th year, helping to foster connections between young people and artists.
"We have had a more mindful, kind of more sit-down focused residency this year with smaller groups.
"It is all about that idea of finding things and seeing value in them that you might not have seen otherwise."
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