Appleby School’s mural tells a story

Appleby School’s new entrant teacher has used her artistic flair to paint a new mural which combines the history and future of the school grounds.

Greta Greenwood’s mural Ka Mua, Ka Muri translates to walking backwards into the future as it tells the story of people moving forwards while remembering the past.

She says it is nice to be given a wall to paint and remembers as a teenager being allowed to paint her bedroom and then the bathroom door. At the school, she got a wall where she painted the special aspects of the land over time.

The river (awa), which has always brought life, mountains (maunga) that “help us know where we are” and the people along the way are depicted in the mural. A koru represents life’s journey and hollows along the outer edge of the koru remember kumara that was grown in the ground by Ngāti Kuia in earlier times.

“All kinds of special things happened here. This story is about our people and our place.”

Representatives from Ngāti Kuia blessed the mural at its unveiling last week.

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