Te Kōrero Tākaro / Stories of Play
About the project
Te Kōrero Tākaro | Stories of Play is an oral history project that celebrates the diversity of Aotearoa and connects people across different cultures, faiths and generations through play.
Rangatahi/young people from three ethnic communities (Pakistani, Singapore and Eritrean) were trained to carry out long-form oral history interviews with older members of their ethnic communities.
We’ve also captured short interviews at our Te Kōrero Tākaro booth at cultural events around Ōtautahi/Christchurch from people from Malaysia, Fiji, Canada, Philippians, Eritrea and Aotearoa/New Zealand about their memories of play and traditional games.
Elements of these traditional games were reimagined as a play and story trail in the inner city of Ōtautahi (March - May 2025), encouraging everyone to have a go at playing games that might be new or seem familiar to games you played as a child.
Scroll down to listen to the audio stories below and experience our virtual story trail.
This collaborative project was developed by InCommon, Our Stories Project and Gap Filler Pae Tākaro.
The Te Kōrero Tākaro booth in action capturing stories of play at events around Ōtautahi.
The play trail
The play trail was launched on Race Relations Day, 21st March 2025 and the four play stations (see map below) open from March 21 - May 21 in the inner city of Ōtautahi. At each location games can be played and audio stories listened to (scroll down this page to listen online here).
By popular demand the Snakes and Ladders game board remains open outside The Piano, 142 Armagh Street, Christchurch City.
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