The Wairau Māori Art Gallery

The world’s first Māori dedicated Public Art Gallery

The Wairau Māori Art Gallery is the first dedicated public Māori art gallery in Aotearoa.

It joins a select group of public indigenous art galleries internationally and will be housed within the stunning new Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei. Hundertwasser himself proposed plans for the building before he passed away in 2000 and it was his vision that a Māori art gallery be housed within it.

The name ‘Wairau’ is Te Reo Māori for One Hundred Waters, just as Hundertwasser means One Hundred Waters in the German language. In Te Ao Māori the notion of multiple waters has deep symbolic meaning since water is the basis of all living things.