Now in its fourth year, Inhabit is an ongoing public art project that reimagines vacant or underused urban spaces as temporary sites for connection and creative exchange. Exploring how our ecosystems of care have evolved in Aotearoa, and how we share our experiences.

The project features hand-sewn banners that give public voice to the intimate stories woven through it. Made from iconic New Zealand cotton redline nappies, the banners are naturally dyed with pigments sourced from the artist’s kitchen and garden, and stitched with participants’ messages in cut-out felt text drawn from conversations during Inhabit Iterations 1 (2022), 2 (2023) and 3 (2024). Evolving from a wall of Post-it note reflections, each note has been transformed into a banner, collectively forming an immersive, process-driven installation that continues the dialogue between Inhabit participants and co-creators.

Iteration 4: Ngakinga, is a participatory social sculpture that nurtures interconnectedness, community collaboration, and ecosystems of care. Conceived as a living laboratory for taiao, creativity, and natural dyeing practices and activated at Papa ki Awataha, Northcote, from March 2025 to April 2026. Artist Holli McEntegart has collaborated with Charmaine Bailie (Te Uri o Hau – Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) to grow a natural dye garden on a 200-square-metre site at Papa ki Awataha—the home of the puna that feeds Te Awataha. The land was bare, raw, hard and cracked, waiting to be nurtured back to its full potential. They are to inhabit here for four seasons, nourishing the whenua intentionally along its journey to good health and growing natural dye plants to create hand dyed fabric artworks with the community. Ngakinga is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and native and non-native plants to co-create public art, ritual and other care practices that weave together our diverse ancestral threads while respecting Māori sovereignty, in honour ultimately of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. As a social sculpture, this intentionally cultivated space will grow plants and flowers selected for their natural dyeing properties to create textile art.

The project invites people to come together on the land—to build community through care, creativity, and connection. It is a place to share personal stories and collective reflection with our feet in the soil and our faces in the flowers; a space to make art with natural dye plants through a lens of decolonisation, sustainability, and ecosystem restoration as the Northcote town centre undergoes redevelopment. The banners sewn and installed at Ngakinga will be dyed with colour extracted from plants grown throughout the year and embroidered with text telling the story of the garden. At Northart Gallery, a parallel installation will feature hand-dyed banners tracing the Inhabit project’s journey through its first three iterations. These will be accompanied by a series of public natural dye workshops held in the garden throughout March 2026.

We acknowledge Mana Whenua as the kaitaiki of this land, and their tupuna past, present, and emerging. 

Follow @hollimcentegart.studio for weekly updates and workshop information, or join the mailing list visit www.inhabitproject.com 

Documentation and drone footage shot by Petra Leary @petraleary