Taranaki’s energy industries have provided employment, supported communities and profoundly shaped the region’s identity. They have also generated complex environmental, cultural and social questions.

Presented alongside Economies of Deferral, this two-part public programme brings personal experience into conversation with artistic perspectives.

Together, speakers and participants will consider the relationships between industry, whenua, workers and communities—reflecting on what the region’s energy history has made possible, what it has cost, and how Taranaki might approach future change in ways that are environmentally responsible, locally informed and socially just.


Part One: Working Lives and Industrial Legacies
1:00pm - 2:30pm

How have Taranaki’s energy industries shaped the lives, livelihoods and communities connected to them?
This kōrero reflects on the region’s energy-generating history through the experiences of people who have worked within and alongside the industry. It considers the employment, skills and economic security these industries created, while also making space for questions about environmental responsibility, whenua and long-term community impacts.

How were workers and their whānau affected by economic restructuring and changes within the sector? What different meanings can an industrial site hold for former workers, local residents, hapū and iwi?
Bringing lived experience into conversation with Economies of Deferral, the session explores how personal histories intersect with wider political and economic change. It asks how the region might recognise the value, tensions and unresolved legacies held within its industrial past.


Tea Break


Part Two: Shaping a Just Transition
3:00pm - 4:30pm

Find out more about part two here.

 

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Image: Left: Ngahuia Harrison, Reservation #1, 2026, Digital colour print Right: Ngahuia Harrison, Reservation #2, 2026, Digital colour print. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Samuel Hartnett.