Before Auckland's new Karanga-a-Hape Station carries its first passengers, the community above it has been given the chance to make the underground space its own.
Around 33 metres beneath Karangahape Road, performers have helped bring the new City Rail Link station to life as part of celebrations marking another milestone before the $5.5 billion rail project opens next month.
Among them were performers Kween Kong and Jaycee from the Kiki House of Iman.
For Kween Kong, the opportunity to perform in a space at the heart of one of Auckland's most distinctive neighbourhoods was particularly significant.
'We're doing what we do best' – Kween Kong
"Oh my darling, it's everything," she said. "We're doing what we do best, which is we throw our bodies around and protest, and we're fabulous."
The celebration reflected the character of Karangahape Road, an area which has long been home to Auckland's arts, music and rainbow communities.
Jaycee Tanuvasa described the ballroom and vogue community as a "queer chosen family space", where queer artists and communities have been able to find refuge, sisterhood and a place to express themselves.
The ballroom scene has its roots in Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities in the United States, with houses operating as chosen families and performers competing across different categories at balls.
For Kween Kong, bringing that culture into the new station was also about recognising the history of the neighbourhood sitting directly above it.
"This is where it started," she said. "I'm from Auckland, but specifically South Auckland.
"This K'Road, this station, this environment, this is where lots of us queer kids were safe."
She said her work around the world had increasingly involved taking a culture which once existed largely underground and introducing it to wider audiences.
"We're doing the best thing that we can do, which is bringing back underground, and we're bringing this into the mainstream," she said.
"It means a lot to be back here and to be able to really enlighten the space and bring back a bit of love."
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Karanga-a-Hape will be New Zealand's deepest railway station when it opens, with its platforms 33 metres below ground. It has entrances at Mercury Lane and Beresford Square.
Passengers entering through Beresford Square will also travel on a 40-metre-long escalator – the longest in the country.
The station forms part of the $5.5 billion City Rail Link, New Zealand's largest transport infrastructure project. Its twin 3.45km tunnels connect Waitematā Station with a redeveloped Maungawhau Station, with the new underground Karanga-a-Hape and Te Waihorotiu stations in between.
Construction on the wider project began in 2016, while work to clear the site for Karanga-a-Hape Station began in 2019.
The CRL is designed to turn Waitematā, formerly Britomart, from a terminating station into a through-station and better connect Auckland's existing rail lines. It is also expected to make journeys quicker and double the number of Aucklanders living within 30 minutes' travel of the central city.
For the performers celebrating underground, however, Friday's event was less about the engineering and more about what the new station represents for the community that will use it.
"No matter how big I get," Kween Kong said, K'Road remained a place she would return to. "It's amazing to be here."
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