About Us

We teach resourceful craft skills such as basket-weaving, felting, and green woodworking, all using local resources, for the wellbeing of people and planet.

By teaching resourcefulness, we help people create what they need from the life within them and around them. We transform local resources through care and craft, this being the opposite of wastefulness.

What is Resourcefulness?

The word resource was originally derived from the Latin resurgō meaning rise again. Life on Earth is deeply resourceful in the inherent ability of all life to continually rise again. Perhaps the form of life will change or decay, but it will always rise again.

Resourcefulness requires us to engage with our inner resources whilst building relationship with the life around us, and in this ongoing exchange we realise the inseparable nature of life on Earth. Being truly resourceful connects us within communities as we share the resources we have.

Our Story

Since the beginning of Rekindle in 2010 in Auckland, then Christchurch, we have run various different projects that have been inherently focused on resourcefulness; some small, some as big as a whole house! Please see Past Projects for more details.

For a sense of the kaupapa of our work these days, please see the film below made by Hilary Jean Tapper, commissioned by Creative New Zealand in April 2020.

Below is a short talk from 2017 by Rekindle's founder Juliet Arnott about the journey of Rekindle from 2010 on, from wastefulness to resourcefulness.

Find Us

We are based at Te Matatiki Toi Ora Arts Centre in central Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand where we have a public craft workshop open 7 days a week from 10am to 5pm. We run an ongoing programme of resourceful craft workshops so the public can participate in & learn new craft.

Our Support

We offer support to craftspeople whose practice is inherently resourceful so they can build and strengthen their careers in craft. We work with dedicated practitioners who wish to both develop and share their skills in this way.

Our work is part-supported by Creative New Zealand & Te Matatiki Toi Ora Arts Centre for which we are hugely grateful. We also run other workshop programmes supported by Christchurch City Council and Selwyn District Council.