According to many Māori narratives, Kupe the great Maori explorer was led to navigate the regions of Aotearoa through his pursuit and battles of the great octopus - Te Wheke o Muturangi through which our ancestors were led to new land from Raiatea, Tahiti, the body of the octopus whose tentacles reach out around the Polynesian triangle.

Ngā Uri o Muturangi affirms ancient ancestral connections through Muturangi centred around customary Māori skin marking, tattoo-tatau and art practices. It does this through online membership and public content as well as a major annual public event hosted by TMT and its partners in Tauranga Moana, called Tā Moko Tā Tatau World Indigenous Festival.

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Through Ngā Uri o Muturangi we encourage and support excellence in the visual arts and cultural practices amongst visual artists of Aotearoa by reaching out to international opportunities and growing the standard of our engagement with international expertise and standards.

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For those experts of ancestral ocean navigation, Te Wheke o Muturangi metaphorically describes the navigation paths or currents from Raiatea (Tahiti) resembling the tentacles reaching out across the Pacific at least as far as the edges of the Polynesian Triangle (Tetahiotupa 2009).