Toi i te Ara — Art in the Street. Print-ready stickers, wheatpaste posters, and banners for indigenous-led street activism on AI, data sovereignty, and te reo Māori. Every sticker on this page can carry a QR code that points back to context on te-pa.org — turning each one into a small public textbook in the Freirean sense.
One-click bundles for organisers, teachers, and rōpū on deadline.
A curated list of indigenous-led campaigns. Slogans come from the movements themselves — not invented by us. A weekly automatic check pulls new headlines from indigenous-led news (ICT News, Cultural Survival, Waatea, Survival International, Guardian First Nations) into the matching category. To turn any of these into a printable sticker, poster, or wheatpaste piece, open the street campaign generator — pick a category, edit the slogan, embed a QR code, download SVG or PNG.
Every sticker below shows a small live QR code. Pick where it points. When you download, you can grab the sticker on its own or with the QR rendered into a margin (right-click the QR → Save image).
26 print-ready designs. Click SVG or PNG to download. Each preview shows a live QR code keyed to the target above.
A3 and A4 — designed for flour-paste application to legal paste-up boards, lamp posts, and utility boxes. Black/red/white for maximum legibility from 10 metres.
Web-ready and print-ready banner files for hīkoi, occupations, and public meetings.
Standard sizes, design principles, and a tested wheatpaste recipe — all drawn from the project's own research foundation, Toi i te Ara.
Pocket-sized; hand distribution; most common small sticker.
Lamp posts, utility boxes; readable from 2–3 metres.
Badge size; laptop, bag, helmet.
Bulk printing; low cost; high-density distribution.
Cheapest mass format: 3–10 cents/sheet at any photocopier.
Standard political poster size and wall-scale paste-up.
1-inch letters readable from 10 feet. Bold, thick letterforms — minimum 2–3 inches outdoors.
Black/white, white/red, black/yellow. Blues and blacks survive UV longest.
Go big, go simple. Avoid gradients, halftones, complex shading — they collapse at small sizes.
Max 3 colours. The Tino Rangatiratanga palette (red/black/white) reads immediately as Māori activist.
Vinyl for outdoor durability. UV-blocking lamination extends life. Round corners reduce edge-peeling.
Bottom-right margin, white background, ≥20 mm square. Test the scan from 30 cm before printing 100.
Production cost reference: A4 photocopy 3–10 ¢/sheet · vinyl die-cut sticker ~$0.30–0.80 in bulk · wheatpaste itself essentially free.
All phrases below are drawn from documented protest contexts — Bastion Point, Ihumātao, Waikato, the 2024 Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, and te reo language petitions. Use them on stickers, on wheatpastes, and on banners.
| Phrase | Meaning | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Toitū te whenua | The land endures forever | Ihumātao, Bastion Point, Waikato |
| Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua, ko au | I am the land, and the land is me | Bastion Point occupation |
| Mana whenua | Authority over the land | Most Māori protest materials |
| Phrase | Meaning | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Toitū Te Tiriti | The Treaty endures / Honour the Treaty | Central slogan of 2024 Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti |
| Tino Rangatiratanga | Full chieftainship / absolute self-determination | All protest contexts from 1840 to present |
| Mana Motuhake | Self-determination; independent mana | Used interchangeably with Tino Rangatiratanga |
| Ka whawhai tonu mātou | We will fight on forever — ake, ake, ake | Waikato war cry; ongoing resistance |
| Kotahitanga | Unity; collective solidarity | 2024 hīkoi; banners, posters, chants |
| Phrase | Meaning | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori | The language is the life force of Māori mana | Sir James Henare, 1988 |
| Ka ngaro te reo, ka ngaro tātou | If the language is lost, we will be lost | Language petitions, Waitangi Tribunal |
| Akona te reo Māori | Learn the Māori language | Protest posters, 1970s onwards |
| Phrase | Meaning | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Raraunga hei taonga | Data as treasure | Te Mana Raraunga |
| Rangatiratanga o te raraunga | Sovereignty over data | Direct parallel to Tino Rangatiratanga |
| Ko ā mātou raraunga, ko mātou anō | Our data, ourselves | Data as extension of identity and mana |
| Kaitiakitanga raraunga | Data guardianship / stewardship | Māori data governance |
| Tino rangatiratanga i roto i te ao hangarau | Self-determination in the digital world | Māori technology sovereignty |
A note that belongs on this page because the stickers, by their nature, cross borders. Anyone pasting up te-pa.org material in Naarm, Eora, or Yagara Country will be in territory governed by other peoples' frameworks. This is how we approach that.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP). The AIATSIS Code of Ethics, the Maiam nayri Wingara Principles, and the True Tracks® framework are clear: no outsider publishes Aboriginal language text without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from the relevant community. The Māori framework does not translate directly across the Tasman, and we will not pretend that it does.
What this means for these stickers: there is no Gamilaraay sticker, no Meriam Mir sticker, no Yumplatok sticker. Not because we don't want there to be — because they belong to a different process. That process is documented at te-pa.org/solidarity/australia/, including the protocol map, the partner directory we are working from, and the first-contact letter we are drafting to First Languages Australia — public before sending, so any community member can read what is being asked.
→ Read the full protocol map & partner directory
Acknowledgement of Country: Te Pā Tūwatawata is operated from Aotearoa New Zealand on the unceded lands of Te Wai Pounamu. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters across Australia, and pay respect to Elders past and present. If you are pasting these materials up on Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Country, you are a guest on that Country and the protocols of that Country apply.
These materials descend from — and acknowledge — a documented tradition of indigenous street activism. For full citations and bibliography, see the Toi i te Ara research foundation.
The most influential street-art crew in Aotearoa's history, founded by Phat1 (Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu) and Adict (Ngāpuhi). 35+ members across Aotearoa, Australia, Germany. Many founders are Māori and Pasifika.
I Will Not Speak Maori — bold typographic poster campaign re-weaponising what Iti was punished for writing as a child. Soviet-monumental graphic language used to infiltrate institutional space. Projected onto Te Papa, posted across Aotearoa.
Placed te reo stickers (Rāpihi — rubbish) on community bins as everyday language activism. When called 'graffiti' he made it an exhibition. A direct model for sticker activism as te reo revitalisation.
Community-painted murals in autonomous caracoles. The community is the author, not the individual. Flat bold colour, integrated text, collective production. Aesthetic: 'unglamorous, persistent, slow, steady.'
Christi Belcourt (Anishinaabe) and Isaac Murdoch produced banner art for mass actions, sending designs to water protectors across North America for free. 'Water is Life / Mni Wiconi' — the 'protector' framing shared with Ihumātao and Mauna Kea.
Kamilaroi / Kooma / Jiman 'activist masquerading as an artist.' Blunt messages in bright colours; archival photographs of activists hidden in Aboriginal-looking motifs. 'You don't need permission to make it happen.'
Freire's 'coded pictures' as pedagogical prompts — art as public textbook. Rivera's mural programme: 'the people as heroes,' art embedded in ministries, hospitals, universities where people live and learn.
Designed by Hiraina Marsden, Jan Dobson Smith, Linda Munn for a Te Kawariki competition. Black / red / white = te pō / te whaiao / te ao mārama. The dominant Māori activist palette.
Te Pā Tūwatawata is operated by a Charitable Trust based in Port Chalmers, Aotearoa New Zealand. All assets on this page are free to repost, translate, and adapt with attribution to Te Pā Tūwatawata Charitable Trust under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Press enquiries: open an issue on GitHub or write via the Trust contact at te-pa.org.
Embargo: none. All stickers, posters, and street-activism materials may be published, printed, and distributed immediately.