Authenticity isn’t just a story you tell — it’s a structure you honour.
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
I just had to walk away from a project that I’d been in deep with — joining on the basis that it was Te Ao Māori driven kaupapa with a high threshold of ethics and values. Appointed the role of Executive Producer I took in a world class team of Creative Director, “Head of Art” Curator & Production Manager.
The project presents itself as a culturally authentic, kaupapa Māori-driven initiative. It uses the language of mana whenua, kaumātua, and mātanga. It promises verified narratives and “ethical cultural representation.”
But behind the LED walls and spatial audio (that we designed & presented), the foundational structure tells another story.
The “founder” wants to retain a majority ownership share.
- That’s not tino rangatiratanga.
- That’s not mana motuhake.
- That’s not indigenous governance.
Ownership and power matter. If a project is built on Māori stories, supported by Māori knowledge holders, and promoted as a Māori experience — then Māori must lead, own, and benefit from it. Anything less risks being extractive, no matter how beautiful the presentation.
It’s time we stop confusing cultural content with cultural control.
Kaupapa Māori means Māori values at every level — not just on the walls.
❌ NOA Is Not a Kaupapa Māori Project — It’s a Founder-Led Business with a Māori Aesthetic
Despite its presentation as a kaupapa Māori immersive gallery, NOA is not grounded in Indigenous leadership, values, or accountability. It is, in essence, a privately controlled startup using Māori culture as its core product — and the structure makes this clear.
1. Business Leadership Controls the Creative Vision
The most significant issue is that the business arm drives the creative direction, not the cultural or creative leaders. NOA is ultimately the personal venture of its founder, who retains decision-making power and majority ownership.
Creative contributors, cultural advisors, and even Māori artists are positioned beneath a commercial leadership tier made up of the founder’s personal advisors, such as:
• a startup mentor with no whakapapa connection or demonstrated grounding in kaupapa Māori. American.
• a business coach and relationship strategist, not a cultural practitioner.
These individuals may bring commercial experience, but they do not bring cultural authority. Yet, they are positioned to influence decisions about how Māori narratives are represented, monetised, and distributed.
This is a serious breach of cultural integrity.
It reverses the correct hierarchy: the Culture and Art should lead, the business should follow.
2. Tokenised Creativity, Marginalised Māori Voices
While the proposal features respected Māori artists, designers, and advisors, their placement within the project suggests a tokenistic relationship rather than genuine shared governance.
• There is no indication that any hapū or iwi holds equity in the project.
• There is no structural mechanism for collective Māori oversight of how stories are chosen, told, or scaled. In fact the “founder” stated he would use generic Atua stories to avoid Iwi oversight.
• Māori creatives are subordinate to a commercial strategy led by non-Māori priorities.
This dynamic contradicts everything a kaupapa Māori framework requires: mana motuhake, community accountability, and tikanga-led process.
3. Start-Up Culture ≠ Kaupapa Māori
The project structure reflects classic startup logic: founder-centric control, business-first decision-making, and commercial scaling. It does not reflect the values of:
• Whanaungatanga (relational accountability)
• Kaitiakitanga (guardianship of taonga)
• Tino rangatiratanga (sovereign Māori leadership)
Framing Māori stories as “assets” to be monetised under the control of a founder and his business coaches is not cultural innovation — it’s appropriation disguised as entrepreneurship.
4. This Is Not “Our” Story — It’s His
NOA is not a kaupapa Māori initiative.
It is a business venture that uses Māori identity as content.
It benefits the founder and his circle of commercial advisors — not the communities whose stories are being sold.
Until Māori creatives, hapū, and iwi are not just consulted but co-owners, co-leads, and co-beneficiaries, this project cannot claim cultural authenticity.
Conclusion
Let’s be clear:
This is not a collective kaupapa.
This is not Māori-led.
This is not tika.
It’s one man’s business using Māori culture for personal gain — supported by people with no lived connection to what they’re selling.
We deserve better.
Our stories deserve better.
#kaupapaMāori #manaMotuhake #culturalintegrity #NOA #indigenousgovernance #decolonisecreative #notyourbusiness
iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
Before NOA became a polished pitch deck or a fancy video trailer, it was a shell of an idea. It was iSPARX™ — a Māori-led, values-driven immersive technology studio — who gave the concept shape, meaning, and cultural relevance.
Let’s name the labour.
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
Conceptual Architecture & Creative Framework
iSPARX™ shaped the entire immersive design logic for the NOA gallery space:
Spatial narrative mapping
Audience engagement strategy
Immersive storytelling structures (multi-sensory and multi-modal)
AR interaction logic and visitor flow (pre-, during, and post-visit)
“We didn’t just think about what it looked like — we thought about how it felt, smelled, moved, and spoke. We grounded it in whakapapa, not spectacle.”
— Joff Rae, former Executive Producer NOA, iSPARX
2. Quote Development & Technical Prototyping
All the major design and technology quotes used to budget NOA’s experience were scoped and sourced by iSPARX™:
LED walls (dimensions, formats, pixel pitch, installation specs)
Spatial audio system design (speaker placement, sound mapping)
Native scent integration (delivery mechanisms, cultural significance)
Lighting and sensory layering across the digital canvas
Augmented Reality content design + development pipelines
“The immersive design you see in their pitch? That’s our system. We scoped and quoted it down to the last lumen.”
—Aaron Hobman iSPARX production lead
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
Absen LED supplier — agent NJL Productions / iSPARX™
3. Cultural Design Integration
iSPARX™ developed the entire immersive cultural design framework:
Integration of te taiao (natural environment) via 360° storytelling
Digitisation of haka, waiata, pūrākau — ensuring tikanga-aligned interpretation
Multi-sensory anchoring (taramea, raukawa, kahikātoa) through scent and sound
Lighting + animation logic inspired by whakapapa layers and maramataka cycles
This wasn’t just “Māori content.” It was Māori-led worldbuilding.
“We didn’t just plug in Māori visuals — we coded tikanga into every layer of the environment.”
— Joff Rae, former Executive Producer NOA, iSPARX
4. Visual Language & Prototyping Assets
iSPARX™ created:
Concept renders for the cube space and visitor walkthroughs
Visual treatments for marketing collateral and stakeholder engagement
Brand storylines aligned with kaupapa Māori design ethics — not startup culture
This creative IP now underpins the public perception of NOA — yet has not been fully acknowledged or attributed.
*demo environment designed & developed by iSPARX™ copyright — all rights reserved ©2025 iSPARX™
5. Strategic Positioning & Cultural Integrity
It was iSPARX™ who insisted on:
Consultation with mana whenua
Co-governance models, not token advisory boards
Profit-sharing or equity frameworks to return value to Māori communities
Avoidance of extractive or aesthetic-only use of Māori symbols
Most of these were not adopted by the business leadership.
“We held the line. But the structure was already compromised. The founder wanted to retain control. That was the red flag.”
— Joff Rae, former Executive Producer NOA, iSPARX
The Truth: iSPARX™ Created the Integrity.
NOA’s presentation is built on the creativity, tikanga, and professional design systems provided by iSPARX™ — yet the business infrastructure:
• Retains control
• Marginalises Māori leadership
• Credits the founder and his business advisors, not the Māori creatives who made it viable
This is not partnership. This is creative appropriation wrapped in a Māori aesthetic.
Conclusion
iSPARX™ did the heavy lifting.
They used our work to demonstrate what could be.
The business took the credit and calls the shots.
Now the kaupapa is compromised.
The immersive design, the cultural logic, the system architecture, the mood — all of it came from a team deeply embedded in te ao Māori, with the expertise to do it with integrity. Without that foundation, it would have been just another tech-fantasy pitch deck with borrowed symbols…
The project structure reflects classic startup logic: founder-centric control, business-first decision-making, and commercial scaling. It does not reflect the values of:
Whanaungatanga (relational accountability)
Kaitiakitanga (guardianship of taonga)
Tino rangatiratanga (sovereign Māori leadership)
*note: we did not gift our concepts to the Founder.
The Founder proposed a notion for a “virtual Māori gallery” inspired by models like TeamLabs in Japan. iSPARX™ conceived, designed & produced the concepts presented including XR/AR/spatial, physical, interactive & sensor concepts & other concepts outlined in this document.
We took the Founder at face value — that this was a Te Ao Māori driven kaupapa.
*footnote
It has come to light that individuals were included in the proposal without their knowledge or consent — an act that constitutes a serious breach of fundamental ethical standards.
It is important to clarify that these ethical concerns lie solely with the Founder and his business advisors. The Iwi representatives and potential investors referenced in the proposal bear no responsibility for these actions and should not be negatively reflected upon as a result.
This article was originally published to Medium - https://isparx.medium.com/authenticity-isnt-just-a-story-you-tell-it-s-a-structure-you-honour-17407eb1cf8b & may be republished in other places.