Tonight Kiwa Digital launches its digital comic Aho Wahine as an application for mobile devices.
The digital comic celebrates and personifies female goddesses of the Māori world.
The digital comic series includes reo Māori and English narrations with music that elevate the stories of the Māori gods Papatūānuku, Hineahuone, Hinetītama, Hinenuitepō and Mahuika.
The writer of the piece, Ramon Te Wake, says it was an honour to be asked to contribute to this story.
"Everything evolves. Language evolves, technology evolves, identity evolves. So too does our story."
A prestigious woman, Ramon is also a trans woman who wrote the digital comic allows people to experience the stories of our wahine Māori gods in a way that is relatable.
"It's funny cause I talk about working with them as being present, you kind of have to have that shared energy. I didn't treat them as being distant, I wanted to sit in them," she says.
"I wanted them to exist so we saw ourselves in them, the struggles, the challenges. A lot of the themes in the stories are quite overwhelming, quite adult and they deal with a lot of issues. So it wasn't about moving away from them, it was about looking at them and showing how resilient we are as people, as women. And how when you empower yourself, you end up making the choices that really matter to you.
Aho Wahine is now available on all app stores.