She named the Taki Rua Theatre, and was a founding member of Māori artists' collectives Te Manu Aute and Haeata.
[4] Baker became invested in contemporary Māori theatre as it was emerging in the 1970s alongside Bruce Stewart, Rowley Habib (Rore Hapipi) and Jim Moriarty.
[5][6] In 1976 Baker was an actor with the newly formed company Te Ika a Maui Players to present the stage production Death of the Land written by Habib.
[4] In the 1980s Baker was part of Te Manu Aute, a collective of Māori film-makers who set about to influence screen production in New Zealand.
The collective included Barry Barclay, Tama Poata, Merata Mita, Don Selwyn, Annie Keating and Karen Sidney.
[20][21][22][23] Baker was an influence on younger theatre practitioners including writer Riwia Brown and actor and director Nancy Brunning.
[24][25] Brunning said in 2018:[26] I thank Tungia Baker, Wi Kuki Kaa, Rona Bailey, Bob Wiki, Rowley Habib, Don Selwyn and Keri Kaa for creating and establishing a Māori theatre industry for us.In 1993 Baker narrated The Clio Legacy by Dorothy Buchanan and Witi Ihimaera with opera singer Helen Medlyn at the Composing Women's Festival in the Wellington Town Hall.
[28][29] Whitehead tells of a time when they were making Ipu when Baker gave musician Nunns a Māori rattle instrument she had made as a replica of one from a museum, "another sound came back into the modern world".
Weaving was one of her skills; she learnt the traditional art of 'raranga harakeke' in Rotorua,[31][32][19] and created the tukutuku panels for the marae at Bruce Bay.
While based on the West Coast she scripted a play about Ngāi Tahu prophet Te Maiharoa, was involved in community arts and festival initiatives.