Wharenui Harikoa
Categories
Cultural Strategy, Partnerships & Delivery, Content
Client
Lissy & Rudi Robinson Cole
Project
Wharenui Harikoa
Services
Branding & Campaign Lead Cultural Strategy Fundraising Partnerships Videography
Year
2023-Current
The work began with whānau — grounded in connection, with global ambition, fierce heart, and a commitment to active learning. My role has been to support Lissy and Rudi as the driving force behind Wharenui Harikoa, ensuring the kaupapa can grow with clarity and strength across contexts.
From there, we developed a framework that brings together identity, storytelling, and strategic positioning — allowing the work to move confidently between cultural, community, and commercial spaces. The approach balances integrity with expansion, ensuring the kaupapa remains grounded while building pathways for scale.
The work began with whānau — grounded in connection, with global ambition, fierce heart, and a commitment to active learning. My role has been to support Lissy and Rudi as the driving force behind Wharenui Harikoa, ensuring the kaupapa can grow with clarity and strength across contexts.
From there, we developed a framework that brings together identity, storytelling, and strategic positioning — allowing the work to move confidently between cultural, community, and commercial spaces. The approach balances integrity with expansion, ensuring the kaupapa remains grounded while building pathways for scale.
Alongside this, I operated as a strategic advisor, partnership manager, and fundraising support — aligning the organisation with opportunities that could sustain and grow its impact. This included translating the value of the work into industry and commercial contexts, ensuring partners could clearly understand both its cultural significance and broader benefit.
Creatively, I directed photoshoots, supported the development of brand identity, and led product design — shaping how the kaupapa is expressed visually and materially. Each element was developed by Lissy and Rudi with intention, my job is to ensure cohesion across content, campaigns, and physical outputs.
Alongside this, I operated as a strategic advisor, partnership manager, and fundraising support — aligning the organisation with opportunities that could sustain and grow its impact. This included translating the value of the work into industry and commercial contexts, ensuring partners could clearly understand both its cultural significance and broader benefit.
Creatively, I directed photoshoots, supported the development of brand identity, and led product design — shaping how the kaupapa is expressed visually and materially. Each element was developed by Lissy and Rudi with intention, my job is to ensure cohesion across content, campaigns, and physical outputs.
The result is a living, artist-led cultural force — one that has moved from dream to cultural icon, with growing recognition across Aotearoa and beyond.
Wharenui Harikoa stands as both practice and presence — he porowhakahākoko ko Uenuku Tāwhana ki te Rangi — carrying narrative, identity, and transformation through each iteration of its. Its impact is tangible, shifting lives through connection, visibility, and cultural affirmation, with other 20,000 wishes collected already and 170,000+ audience in only 4 locations.
At the centre, Lissy and Rudi are building toward international reach — not as ambition alone, but as a natural extension of the work’s integrity and resonance. The trajectory is clear: a kaupapa grounded in Aotearoa, with the scale and strength to move the globe.
The result is a living, artist-led cultural force — one that has moved from dream to cultural icon, with growing recognition across Aotearoa and beyond.
Wharenui Harikoa stands as both practice and presence — he porowhakahākoko ko Uenuku Tāwhana ki te Rangi — carrying narrative, identity, and transformation through each iteration of its. Its impact is tangible, shifting lives through connection, visibility, and cultural affirmation, with other 20,000 wishes collected already and 170,000+ audience in only 4 locations.
At the centre, Lissy and Rudi are building toward international reach — not as ambition alone, but as a natural extension of the work’s integrity and resonance. The trajectory is clear: a kaupapa grounded in Aotearoa, with the scale and strength to move the globe.
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