TIAKI
Artists: Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp
Curator: Shannon Te Ao
Saturday 7 June 2025 – Sunday 5 October 2025
Tiaki is a manaia, a bearer who connects the worldly and spiritual realms. Tiaki acknowledges the space between and overlapping people, atua, this place, its histories and its presence. The contrasting faces of Tiaki reflects equally upon the people and the spiritual lives that reside here and marks this whenua as a dynamic place where the tangible and intangible converge.
Tiaki acknowledges Te Aro pā and its people, the original kaitiaki of this whenua, as well as those who have come to be here since. Tiaki is borne from the tension and duality of a place that wears the scars of a displaced people and a seemingly alientated reality carried by passersby through to all the peoples that walk, talk, party, meet, eat and bring to life Courtney Place as we know it most nights.
Tiaki reflects the spirit and spirits of this place. The atua, celestial beings, the taniwha and the pūrākau and stories that over time watch over us.
Tiaki enacts a movement through different times and spaces and embodies the heightened state one might hold when carrying the stories of those who are no longer here, those that are always here and those in between.
About the artist
Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Tama) was brought up between the Basque Country in the South of France, and Aotearoa New-Zealand and grew up by the seas and the mountains with his French mother, his Māori father and his two siblings. Art and activism have always been linked for Shannon who has a deep and strong connection to his Māori Whakapapa and is passionate about keeping Toi Māori alive in his work. Protecting Māori rights, Mātauranga a iwi and hapū, and Kaupapa Māori are foundational to his artistic output.
Shannon has a Masters in Māori Visual Arts from Massey University, Palmerston North, a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching from Victoria University, Wellington, a Diploma in Fine Arts, The Louvre Museum, Paris, France, a Diploma in Graphic Design Bordeaux, France, and d'Art Superieur Penninghen, Diploma in Graphic Design, Paris, France.
Curator bio:
Shannon Te Ao’s recent film and photographic works conflate markers of place, movement, and experience. Often elegiac in tone, imagery within his work reflects upon personal narratives, historical events, and collaboration as means to explore Māori thought and experience.
Te Ao has exhibited widely nationally and internationally and teaches at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, CoCA Toi Rauwharangi, Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara, NZ. He holds a BFA from the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts and an MFA from Massey University.
He has recently completed commissions for The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) QAGOMA Brisbane and the 13th Gwangju Biennale: Minds Rising Spirits Turning in 2021. Te Ao recently presented solo exhibitions at REMAI Modern (Saskatoon); Oakville Galleries (Toronto), and Te Uru (Tamaki Makaurau Auckland). In 2022 Te Ao curated the exhibition Matarau at City Gallery Wellington.