Hāngī happiness kicks off RAMP Festival

The annual RAMP Festival kicked off at the city campus of Wintec Te-Pūkenga last Tuesday morning. The festival, hosted by the School of Media Arts, is a collaboration of workshops and guest speakers who come from near and far to show the students what potential pathways they might be looking down, and sharing real world experiences.

One of the festival activities this year included a traditional hāngī lunch, held at Te Kōpū Mānia o Kirikiriroa, the Wintec marae.

The hāngī has been a feature of the School of Media Arts events over the past 5 years.

Students tuck into their food together. Photo by Gabriel Bowen.

Centre Director Sam Cunnane who oversaw the hāngī, was looking forward to showing the students the togetherness and culture of what a hāngī brings to the RAMP festival.

“It definitely acknowledges the Māori culture, but it also becomes more of a feast which is what we wanted to show than say your traditional barbeque”.

The process started for the team on Monday afternoon, with a bunch of students coming in for a few hours to peel the potatoes and kumara and chop pieces of pumpkin.

The fire was lit at around 6am Tuesday to heat the stones, then a few hours later, the stones were placed in the purpose built hāngī pit with baskets of meats and vegetables on top. Everything was covered and cooked for several hours before the lifting just before 12noon.

Teachers start getting the food ready for consumption. Photo by Gabriel Bowen.

A team of around 5-6 people were helping set up the event on the day but it was a group effort with extra hands-on deck to clean up once the feast had been finished.

There was a different range of food on offer like: pork, chicken, pumpkin, kumara, potatoes and steamed pudding which was all cooked in the hāngī. Fried bread, chickpea salad and stuffing was also available. There were vegan options cooked in the wahrekai for people who wanted to be a part of the festivities without affecting their dietary options.

All hands on deck were needed as the dishes kept coming. Photo by Gabriel Bowen.

RAMP Festival continued for the rest of the week until Thursday where it finished with a guest speaker panel of several former students, who were eager to show how far they have come from their student days.