Rangi Kipa (Te Āti Awa Te Atiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama) – Ouou, 2026

Venue

Les Grandes Locos

Metropolitan area

Born in 1966 in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand
Lives and works at Ngāpuketūrua, next to the Waiongana River in North Taranaki, Aotearoa New Zealand

Rangi Kipa’s practice is grounded in the cultural responsibilities that surround whales within te ao Māori, the Māori cultural worldview. In 1996, Kipa challenged the New Zealand Government’s claim of ownership over a whale stranded on the coastline of his ancestral lands, asserting the right to harvest its bone and teeth for the creation of ritual objects. Since then, he has advocated for changes to legislation that restrict customary practices relating to stranded whales, understood across many Pacific cultures as gifts from Tangaroa, the ocean deity. For the opening weeks of the Biennale, Kipa carves whale bone and teeth in the gallery, inviting visitors to encounter and handle this precious material. A suite of photographs situates these objects within the natural environment, visualising concepts of balance and harmony central to Māori cultural thought.

Rangi Kipa is a contemporary Māori artist. He has been instrumental in the renewal of Māori cultural practices and visual languages suppressed by British colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand.