Remembering Wai‐Horotiu: microhistory, public art, and Indigenous environmental justice in Tāmaki Makaurau

ABSTRACT Few people walking along Queen Street in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, realise they are treading above Wai‐Horotiu, a historically significant stream now buried beneath the urban landscape. In this paper, I examine how Wai‐Horotiu, once vital to the socio‐cultural and ecological well‐being of mana whenua, was systematically canalised, polluted, and ultimately hidden underground through settler colonial interventions. Drawing on settler colonial theory and Indigenous environmental justice frameworks, I adopt a microhistory approach to reveal how these processes deliberately disrupted Māori relationships with their ancestral waterscapes and resulted in enduring ecological and social impacts. The story of Wai‐Horotiu illustrates broader patterns of ecological and cultural erasure characteristic of colonial water governance practices, both locally and globally. Additionally, I explore recent artistic and nature‐based restoration efforts, including stream daylighting initiatives, which actively challenge colonial narratives, reaffirm Māori presence, and provide hopeful pathways toward restoring reciprocal tangata‐wai (people‐water) relationships and achieving environmental justice in contemporary urban spaces.