• 
• 

The NorthTec Council awarded an institutional medal to Allen Wihongi and Douglas Chowns and an honorary fellowship to Mike Sanderson at its graduation ceremonies recently.

The NorthTec Council awarded an institutional medal to Allen Wihongi and Douglas Chowns and an honorary fellowship to Mike Sanderson at its graduation ceremonies recently.

The NorthTec Council honours were established in 2006 as a means of recognising the contributions and achievements of noteworthy Northlanders in the community, the region or on the national and international stage.

This year, for the first time, the NorthTec Council awarded Institutional Medals to two former staff members – both of whom had held leadership roles in the polytechnics arts programme.

Allen Wihongi is an artist, educator and passionate advocate for the development of Ngapuhi. He was born in Kawakawa and educated in Kaikohe before training at Elam School of Fine Arts and embarking on a 28-year career as a teacher.

He was senior lecturer in the School of Design at Wellington Polytechnic and Head of School and Manager of the School of Applied Arts at what was then called Northland Polytechnic.
 
For the last seven years he has been working on behalf of Ngapuhi as Manager of Hapu Development and Projects, Relations Manager, and General Manager of Iwi Development for Te Runanga a-iwi-o-Ngapuhi.
 
His artwork has achieved national and international recognition. He is known as a fine artist and as a creator of mixed media works and has acted as a Maori design consultant on a number of significant projects including the “Tomb of the Unknown Warrior” at the National Memorial in Wellington and the New Zealand Memorial ANZAC Parade in Canberra.

Allen is also known for his design work and carving. He has worked on the design and decoration of various marae wharenui. His latest work was the design and decoration of the Kohewhata Marae complex in Kaikohe.
 
Allen says that he hopes to act as a facilitator for those in the community to find their pathways and to identify how they themselves want to develop. “You use the tools at your disposal,” he says. “My beginning was as an educationalist and then I worked through the arts. Now I look at traditions and how they sit alongside the laws of the land.”

Allen's belief in the right of the individual to think independently and enjoy freedom in their creative expression has informed his work as an artist, educator and advocate for Ngapuhi. “It’s really about people believing in themselves,” he says. “If you believe in yourself then you can believe in others. I like to help people visualise their dreams and aspirations.”

The second recipient of a NorthTec Council Institutional Medal, Douglas Chowns, is well known in Northland, and the Whangarei district in particular.

Douglas has a reputation for being a trail blazer – as a creative thinker, artist and as an educator.
Douglas worked in a very wide range of creative industries, notably in the glamorous world of advertising in the 1960s. He moved to New Zealand in the 1970s and has lived in the region working as a professional artist and educator ever since.  

Douglas initiated the fulltime tertiary-level study of crafts and arts at what is now known as NorthTec and went on to tutor many of Northland’s most successful practicing artists and craftspeople from the 1980s.

Douglas has been a member of the Northland Society of Arts for 33 years and has exhibited in New Zealand and internationally since 1975. He works can be found in public and private collections around the world.

During his acceptance speech he shared the story of how he talked his way into art school at a young age and how art school then changed his life. He also urged those present to nurture the ‘creatives’ amongst them and to recognise the importance of such talented individuals in all aspects of our lives.

More information

NorthTec is the Tai Tokerau (Northland) region's largest provider of tertiary education, with campuses and learning centres in Whangarei, Kerikeri, Rawene, Dargaville, Kaikohe and Kaitaia.  NorthTec also has over 60 community-based delivery points from Coatesville in rural Rodney to Ngataki in the Far North.