INFO
| Name | Hainamana |
| Type of Text | Magazine |
ABOUT
Hainamana was a magazine-style arts and culture website, established by writer, editor and curator Amy Weng to foster discourse within Asian New Zealand artistic spaces. Founded in 2016, it ceased publishing in 2020 but remains accessible online. The website’s name is the te reo Māori word transliteration of ‘Chinaman’, and its use is part of a movement by Asian people living in Aotearoa to reclaim the word.
Hainamana published writing — by Weng and others — on visual and performing art, as well as poetry and prose, identifying itself as a place to observe “emergent themes” within Asian New Zealand art discourse, including being a forum for “social agitation”. The site emphasised “subjectivity, regional specificity, linguistic difference, and the rapidly changing dimensions of contemporary New Zealand society”.
In 2017, Weng organised the Asian Aotearoa Artists Hui, held at Te Tuhi in Tāmaki Makaurau. The hui was driven by conversation with artists, writers and creatives she’d met through Hainamana, and the desire to bring everyone together to meet in person.
In 2019, Hainamana received a grant from Mātātuhi Foundation, enabling the commission of eight new pieces of original writing alongside profiles, with this suite of publishing co-edited by Weng and writer Alison Wong.
