From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
whakapapa
This article is about the whakapapa participatory audio work. For the genealogical concept, see Whakapapa.
whakapapa is a long-running participatory audio installation treating the listener as genealogist of the cycle. Ten interconnected chambers, each named after a layer of descent, accumulate voices over time. The first chamber broadcasts Katita's voice describing the Kármán line; the tenth is silence, except for six months of recorded listener-breath.
Visitors enter and re-enter in non-sequential order, layering their own voices atop prior recordings. A central chamber broadcasts a rotating question: "What did your grandmother know about circles?" Participants leave voice messages; no answer is deemed incorrect. Over time, genealogy accumulates: the original narration becomes buried beneath community memory, family stories in Māori and English, the laughter and weeping of strangers.
The work engages Whakapapa not as metaphor but as method: genealogy as simultaneous listening downward and outward, honouring what has been spoken and what remains unrecorded. It has become a touchstone for theological readings of the doctrine of refusal and the cycle as oral form.