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.
The project started with a group of rangatahi/young people from three ethnic communities (Pakistani, Singapore and Eritrean) trained to carry out long-form oral history interviews with older members of their ethnic communities.
Short interviews are captured through our Kōrero Tākaro story booth at cultural events and festivals around Ōtautahi/Christchurch from people from diverse communities about their memories of play and traditional games.
In mid 2025 elements of traditional games shared by people from Pakistan, Singapore, Eritrea, Malaysia, Fiji, Canada, Philippines and Aotearoa/New Zealand were reimagined as a play and story trail in the inner city of Ōtautahi. The play trail encouraged everyone to have a go at games that might be new, or similar, to games played we played as children.
Scroll down to listen to the audio stories and experience our virtual story trail.
This collaborative project was developed by InCommon, Our Stories Project and Gap Filler Pae Tākaro with funding from Rātā Foundation, Ministry for Ethnic Communities, Creative New Zealand, Boosted and crowd funding.
The Te Kōrero Tākaro booth in action capturing stories of play at events around Ōtautahi.
Kōrero in the City
In October, InCommon joined forces with Our Stories, Gap Filler and Humans of Ōtautahi, for an event called Kōrero in the City, which was part of the Christchurch Heritage Festival 2025. This interactive installation in Cashel Mall invited passersby to share their stories of play or interview each other about play with our story booth. We heard lots of great stories about favourite childhood play such as tree climbing, hut building, superheroes and how having a gang of kids to roam around the neighbourhood shaped our identities (and sometimes worried our parents!).
Visitors also tried out the Kōrero Tākaro marble game and shared memories on postcard wall. Across the four days, 17 interviews were recorded from people of all ages and cultures.
Listen to a collection of voices from Kōrero in the City.
The 2025 play trail
The play trail was launched on Race Relations Day, 21st March 2025 with four play stations (see map below) open from March 21 - May 21 in the inner city of Ōtautahi. At each location games could be played and audio stories heard.
By popular demand the Snakes and Ladders game board remained open outside The Piano, 142 Armagh Street, Christchurch City until November 2025.
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