15/12/2025
Living history of modern poi and flow art.
What a coincidence?!
We were traveling in the South Island of New Zealand. We went into the local Saturday market in Nelson and accidentally found ourselves in a conversation with a cheerful old man who was selling own made kites, children toys, pinwheels and poi.
As you may know the modern poi as we know today is coming from New Zealand as well as the name “POI” what was a ritual and fight training prop of the Maori people.
After some talk we found out that the man is Ted Howard, the designer of the comet poi (ribbon poi) in 1995. At that time he sent his product to Active people company, who copied it and created the well known Kiwido which spread all over the world.