In three days, over 240 East Auckland students (from Years 7 – 13) were invited to contribute to Frog World by Abigail Aroha Jensen. To accompany the giant frog, students were asked to create a fly using found and recycled materials. Various workshops were delivered in school with the opportunity for their finished works to be installed. The final installation demonstrated the large, contributed make in community, by young people and displayed at Te Tuhi.
Frog World builds on Abigail Aroha Jensen’s Inside my papahou: puoro tuatini, continuing her exploration of the papahou (treasure box) as a site of creation and learning. Inspired by a puppet-making workshop at Busan Biennale 2024, Jensen presents an enlarged version of a cardboard frog she originally made in South Korea.
The frog becomes both a papahou and a theatre, holding fragments of her travels - perfume cards, a handbag, and other ephemeral objects - transforming everyday items into taonga. Accompanying the installation is a 12-channel “sonic tukutuku,” composed from field recordings across Asia and Aotearoa, alongside contributions from her online community.