Kōrero – Contemporary Māori Art

Rangi Kipa, Ngahuia Harrison and Chevron Hassett join Zoe Black for a conversation exploring their individual practices, together with the diverse and layered roles each has alongside their creative mahi. Through the kōrero, these talented ringatoi will share insights into their work on display at the Fair and how this is intertwined with other projects they are currently undertaking, including placemaking and civic developments, academic research and public sculpture.

Zoe Black | Moderator
Rangi Kipa | Speaker
Chevron Hassett | Speaker
Ngahuia Harrison | Speaker 

Zoe Black (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine, Pākehā) is the Deputy Director of Objectspace, a public gallery dedicated to craft, design and architecture in Aotearoa New Zealand. She works across curatorial programming, community and international development, programme delivery and more. Black’s curatorial practice centres community development and advocating for critically under-represented craft and object art forms.

Rangi Kipa is a sculptor, carver and tā moko artist whose practice explores the articulation of cultural and tribal identity through the whakapapa of adornment and ethnographic taonga. Raised in Waitara in Taranaki, Kipa (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Tama ki te Tauihu) first trained as a carver at Maraeroa Carving School in Porirua in 1986, later completing a Master of Māori Visual Arts at Massey University in 1999. He has since forged a practice that investigates how customary Māori motifs, materials and techniques can be re-envisaged in a kōrero (conversation) between past and present.

Chevron Hassett (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Rongomaiwāhine, Ngāti Kahungunu, Pākehā) is an artist whose practice engages with sculpture, photography, and public installation. His work responds to the impact of urbanisation on Māori communities, informed by his own upbringing and community, grounded in the visual and spatial language of Māori design. Working with reclaimed materials and architectural references, Hassett reconfigures forms to speak to ideas of shelter, identity, and collective memory. His installations often function as living spaces of exchange, where mātauranga Māori and the urban experience intersect.

Ngahuia Harrison (Ngātiwai, Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Kahu o Torongare) is a lens-based artist who works with analogue and digital photography, as well as moving image. Her research-driven practice is embedded in the specificities of place and mana-i-te-whenua, and often draws out the political and cultural complexities of the sites she pictures.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.