Maddy Vai-Little
Te Atiawa, Hāmoa- Vaiala, Moata’a
Social Media Content & Communications
Tēnā koe, Malo le soifua!
Ko Maddy tōku ingoa. I am studying towards a Bachelor of the Arts majoring in Media Studies and Theatre at Te Herenga waka (and I am going into my third and final year!) Studying the Arts and Media at university has really opened my eyes to the importance of ensuring that Māori voices are reflected within the arts space. Furthermore, emphasizing the key role social media has in providing a platform for this purpose. Thus, I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to intern at Toi Māori to do this.
My role at Toi Māori, as the Taihonoa Social Media Intern, will be to develop and implement a Social Media Campaign with the goal of highlighting the mahi TMA does to promote our artists. I will be testing the influence and engagement across our social media channels to gain an understanding as to how and why our audience interacts with our content. As well as reporting on our social media findings and statistics!
I hope to gain in-depth knowledge into the work that TMA does for our Māori artists and their art, while also having the opportunity to empower and uplift our people with mana in the process.
Post-Internship Statement:
It’s important to adapt to whatever audience and kaupapa that you’re doing social media for. I think it’s important that the content that we post not only does the people justice but also the art, so everything right down to the captions to crediting people is really about maintaining the mana of these people and the work that they do.
Working on social media here has made me realise that even though some of these artists are quite reowned, they’re still human. It’s been real humbling to hear that these are people that just want to make sure that Māori art continues to flourish and thrive.
I’ve really enjoyed my time and my experiences here, and I want to thank everyone on the team for making my time here so awesome: I’ve learnt a lot, I’ve built a lot of connections – there’s been a lot of laughs – so thank you to everyone in the Toi Māori whānau.
